A Duke University clinic helps transgender youth transition to new identities. Originally published in Duke Magazine. Photos by Alex Boerner. ATOM EDWARDS IS A HIGH-SCHOOL JUNIOR who carries himself with a confidence that not all his peers possess. The youngest of four siblings, he has a lanky frame and a hi-top fade that lightens at […]
The Son God Gave Me
My child’s struggle to figure out who he was called everything I believed into question. With my strong faith and lots of soul-searching, the answers finally became clear. By Gina Kentopp as told to Barry Yeoman Originally published in Woman’s Day. WHEN MY SECOND CHILD, KYLE, was born in 1994, and the nurse told me […]
Reports from Moral Monday
During 2014, I reported on North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement, a faith-based organizing effort that is becoming a national model. The movement is spearheaded by the state NAACP with broad support from churches and issue-based organizations, including women’s, immigrant, environmental, LGBT, and labor groups. Most of the articles were published online by The American Prospect, illustrated by […]
Rebuilding America’s Schools
The average public school in this country is more than 40 years old—and showing its age. Roofs leak, walls are ridden with termites and lead paint, and rooms are chronically overcrowded. Parade looks at two communities that rebuilt their schools—and the lessons they can teach all of us. Originally published in Parade. JUST A FEW […]
Map Quest
Marie Lynn Miranda, head of the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative at Duke, uses sophisticated modeling to tackle stubborn public-health problems. Originally published in Duke Magazine. LAST FALL, DURHAM COUNTY HEALTH DIRECTOR Gayle Harris faced a thorny question: How do you get a confused and suspicious public inoculated against H1N1 influenza? The much-feared flu strain had […]
RNC Day 3: Young, But Not for Obama
More than two years after his father died in Afghanistan, a North Carolina guest at the GOP convention reflects on the war. Originally published in Indy Week. THIS WEEK, AS NICK OCHSNER ATTENDS THE Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., the Elon University sophomore can’t listen to all the pro-military speeches without thinking about his father. Sgt. […]
Leap of Faith
Can academic rigor, firm discipline, and a daily dose of religion turn boys from poor families into scholars? An intimate look at one such attempt. Originally published in Duke Magazine. AS AN AUGUST DRIZZLE falls outside, thirty-one middle-schoolers sit at long tables in a North Carolina mountain lodge. It’s the end of summer vacation: Next week […]
Lights Out
Can contact sports lower your intelligence? Originally published in Discover. SOME 20 YEARS AGO, IN FRONT OF A FRENZIED and antagonistic crowd, Harry Carson hurled his entire bulk—240 pounds—into an equally massive human body racing toward him across the field at Washington’s RFK Stadium. A middle linebacker with the New York Giants, Carson was a celebrated defensive […]
Acting Up With the Young Republicans
No shortage of young folks at the Republican Youth Convention. Of course, some of them weren’t Republicans. By Michael Scherer and Barry Yeoman. Originally published in the online edition of MotherJones.com. THE SOUVENIR STAND AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN was doing a brisk business Wednesday morning as 2,000 adolescents and young adults convened for the 2004 Republican […]
Is the U.S. government making children fat?
Originally published in Nieman Reports. WHEN I AGREED TO WRITE about school lunches for the magazine Mother Jones, conventional wisdom tying junk food to childhood obesity was so rampant that I could have produced a serviceable story with very little research. Reading newspapers and talking with food professionals and government officials, I repeatedly heard that the nation’s biggest nutrition […]
