2006 WINNERS

JUDGES

  • NICOLE BOGDAS is a news designer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale where she works on 1A, local and special projects, and has earned several SND awards. She's a Chicago native who's worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., and interned at the Detroit Free Press and South Bend (Ind.) Tribune. She attended the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism. Nicole was awarded second place in the daily designer of the year category at the SSND competition in 2001.

    GREG SWANSON is the Assistant Managing Editor for Presentation at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa. He is responsible for all visuals at the newspaper and oversees photography, design, graphics and copy editing. Prior to this position, he was the newspaper's Features Editor. He previously worked at The Detroit News as the Lead Sports Designer and the Omaha World-Herald as the Night Sports Editor and as a news designer. He is SND's Design Quick Course director, is a member of SND's Competition Committee and the former Region 6 Director. He is a regular speaker on the Quick Course circuit and has been a presenter at the last three national workshops. He and his wife live in Davenport with their four sons. Because his wife is a freak about being Irish their son's names are Finnegan (7), Callum (4), Brogan (2) and Declan (8 months). Seriously.

    WADE WILSON is the director of design and graphics at the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch. Before the Post-Dispatch he worked with the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., and the Fort Pierce/Port St. Lucie (Fla.) Tribune.

    JUAN THOMASSIE produces interactive graphics for USATODAY.com. In 1999, he joined USA Today as a senior designer with experience in breaking news graphics and 3D animation. His primary focus is now development of interactive news graphics, multimedia presentations, and data-driven interactive graphics for the site which has an audience of more than 10 million unique visitors a month.

    Thomassie worked at KRT News In Motion in Washington D.C., producing animated graphics for television news broadcasts. Before returning to the East Coast, Juan was Art Director for the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition. He was a senior artist for the Los Angeles Times, assisting in training and in the production of The Los Angeles Times Editorial Graphics and Design stylebook. Juan also worked as a newspaper artist for USA Today, the Times-Picayune in New Orleans and The State-Times in Baton Rouge, LA.

    Thomassie is a graduate of Louisiana State University and a native of New Orleans. He has been a visiting faculty member at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies for the last 17 years.

    DEMETRIA GALLEGOS is online news editor at DenverPost.com, responsible for breaking news on the website. This year, the site won first place awards for breaking news in the Colorado Associated Press Editors and Reporters contest, and for content in the Colorado Press Association contest.

    Previously, she coordinated the multimedia partnership between Denver's NBC affiliate and the Post. A converged project about the military justice system, "Betrayal in the Ranks," was nominated for Heartland Emmy, Digital Edge and Dart awards. The project won the Best in the West Online Enterprise Reporting Award.

    Demetria spent 10 years in local television, producing newscasts and special projects. Awards include a 2000 Heartland Emmy in Public Service for "Your Voice/Your Vote," a debate series on six statewide ballot proposals.

    She also spent four years at the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in New York City, after her graduation from Columbia College and the School of Journalism at Columbia University.

    ALICE SKY is senior producer for the City Group in Knight Ridder Digital, working with a team of five who help 20 newspapers produce daily Web sites. Her team shares in the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald's coverage of Hurricane Katrina. The Pulitzer is the crown jewel of many awards given for the newspaper's print and SunHerald.com coverage of Katrina's devastating impact on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. (The Times-Picayune of New Orleans also was recognized in the same Pulitzer category.)

    Alice also works closely with The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle's site -- Kansas.com -- which was a finalist in the Online News Association awards for breaking news with coverage of the BTK serial killer.

    Alice has worked with Knight Ridder for almost 21 years, first as an editor/page designer for The Wichita Eagle, then as News Editor/Visuals for the paper and eventually launching its original Web Site -- WichitaOnline.com -- in 1996. As a page designer and news editor, she won numerous SND awards, and was second-in-command on the Eagle's 1989 redesign. She has conducted many workshops on the college and professional level, including a one-week session in 2005 at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

    Before joining Knight Ridder, she worked for the Colorado Springs Sun and the Salina (Kan.) Journal. She is a graduate of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.

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