Here’s wishing the happiest of birthdays to three brilliant visual journalists…
Shannon Buggs is director of communication at the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Houston. A 1992 graduate of Harvard, Shannon earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern in 1994 and interned at the Houston Defender, the Houston Post and the Dallas Morning News before settling in at the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., where she reported on local and state government issues. She joined the Chronicle in 1999 and, for more than ten years, wrote a popular personal finance column. She’s also the founder of Meta-Four Houston, a nonprofit spoken-word poetry group for youth ages 13 to 19. Find Meta-Four’s Facebook page here and its Twitter feed here. She started work for the university in 2010. Find her personal Twitter feed here.
Jonah Kessel is a video journalist for the New York Times, based in Beijing, China. A 2005 graduate of St. Michael’s College in Burlington, Vt., Jonah free-lanced pictures to the Burlington Free Press. He spent three years as visual director of the Tahoe Daily Tribune in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., before becoming a photo and design consultant working in exotic places like Algeria. He moved to Beijing three years ago to become the creative director at the China Daily. Jonah went freelance again in 2010. and joined the Times a year ago. Find his personal web site here and his Twitter feed here. Jonah turns 32 today.
Rob Smoak is an architectural CAD sign designer at Sign International of Beaumont, Texas. Rob spent seven years as a news artist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and then five years as graphics editor of the Myrtle Beach, S.C., Sun News before moving to the Beaumont Enterprise in 2007. He left the Enterprise in 2009. Find his blog and portfolio here and his Twitter feed here. Rob turns 45 today.
Jonah, Shannon and Rob share a birthday with actors Yasmine Amanda Bleeth, Karen Lucille “Lucy” Hale, Kevin Michael McHale, Daryl Christopher Sabara, William Rankin “Will†Patton, Margaret Theresa Bradley (better known as Marla Gibbs) and Eugene Klass (better known as Gene Barry); musicians George Alan O’Dowd (better known as Boy George) and Burl Kle Ivanhoe Ives; director Sam Irvin; sports greats Stefanie Marie “Steffi†Graf (tennis), Eric Arthur Heiden (speed skating) and Samuel “Sam” Perkins (basketball); novelists Józef Lewinkopf (better known as Jerzy KosiÅ„ski) and Harriet Beecher Stowe; Cuban revolutionary Ernesto “Che†Guevara, neuropathologist Aloysius “Alois” Alzheimer; presidential press secretary-turned-TV journalist Pierre Emil George Salinger, photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White and gazillionaire Donald John Trump.
In addition to Flag Day, today is World Blood Donor Day, Career Nurse Assistants Day and Family History Day. Seriously.
Have a wonderful birthday, all! Best wishes!
