Times Photojournalist, Travel Writer Honored

Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition photojournalist Gail Fisher’s photo-essay of inner-city teenagers enrolled in a Santa Ana ballet school was honored Thursday with a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds was named Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of 1997.

The prize was for Fisher’s 35 pictures that appeared in a special section titled “Shelter on Stage,” which chronicled the troubled lives of five youngsters who turned to the St. Joseph Ballet for refuge, growth and hope. The prestigious prize recognizes outstanding coverage of issues facing society’s disadvantaged.

The photos and accompanying stories by Times staff writer Rebecca Trounson were published in a 10-page section in the May 26, 1996, edition of The Times Orange County.

Fisher, Orange County photo editor for special projects, has also received national awards for “Shelter on Stage” from the National Press Photographers Assn. and the Society of Newspaper Design. Also, the writing and photography recently won first place for general excellence from the Orange County Press Club.

The Thomas award is the top travel writing honor given annually by the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition. The competition is sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation and judged by faculty members of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

The judges noted the “depth and breadth . . . and flair” of Reynolds’ work, who also won the award in 1995.

Other 1997 Kennedy award winners for print journalism were Melvin Claxton of the Virgin Islands Daily News, for his investigative report documenting problems of the educational system in the Virgin Islands; Gilbert Lewthwaite and Gregory Kane of the Baltimore Sun, for stories that confirmed claims that slavery still exists in Sudan; Carol Guzy of the Washington Post, for her photographs of the exodus of Rwandan refugees returning home from Zaire; and Doug Marlette of Newsday, for editorial cartoons covering topics such as the burning of African American churches and campaign issues of 1996.