Jean Lotus

Award-winning journalist, author

Colorado-based award-winning journalist, non-profit publicist and fundraiser.

Jean Lotus

Award-winning journalist, author

Colorado-based award-winning journalist, non-profit publicist and fundraiser.

Solar-powered cisterns bring running water to Navajo homes
More than 300 families on the Navajo Nation reservation have fresh running-water systems for the first time, provided for free, and a non-profit group hopes its delivery model can expand to other remote Navajo households in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The Navajo Water Project installs complete water systems, funded by donations, for households across the Navajo Nation.
UPI
As coal dwindles, Southwest tribal solar farms pump out power
New, large-scale solar farms are bringing jobs to reservations and electricity for the first time to families living on tribal lands in remote areas of the Southwest. Along with selling renewable energy on a large scale to cities like Albuquerque and Los Angeles, solar power generated by tribes pays for infrastructure to power up homes that have been waiting decades for electricity.
UPI
VIDEO: Archaeologists may have unearthed Haymarket time capsule
It’s been an open secret for almost two years that something important was buried next to the historic Haymarket Martyr’s Monument in Forest Park. On Oct. 3, archaeologists and volunteers dug up an object they think may be an 1892 time capsule containing letters, trial documents and other artifacts from Chicago’s Haymarket Affair.
CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN: G.F. Handel's Magnificent Dixit Dominus live!
The Handel Week Festival is Oak Park's celebration of the music of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). We need your help to stage one of Handel's most complex and majestic choral works: Dixit Dominus HWV 232. This was the composer's first large-scale work, rediscovered by musicologists in 1926. Twenty-four singers and a professional baroque orchestra of 14 players will present this dazzling work on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 at the acoustically exceptional Grace Episcopal Church in Oak Park, Illinois.
Historical Society of Forest Park starts online fundraising for Eastland Disaster 100th Anniversary Events
The Historical Society of Forest Park hopes to raise $8,000 for SS Eastland Disaster 100th Anniversary events. The online campaign will help host a commemoration dinner, Friday, July 17 and our GPS-guided cemetery tour Saturday, July 18 including special flags marking each Eastland grave and a second tour (by coach) to Mt.
The Chicago Tribune
Navajo Nation reservation COVID-19 outbreak strains hospitals
The COVID-19 pandemic is straining the medical capacity of poorer areas of Indian country in the southwestern United States following an early outbreak that has swept through the Navajo Nation reservation. Health officials have reported that the Navajo Nation has the highest number of coronavirus cases among U.S. tribal entities, with 321 people testing positive and 13 confirmed deaths as of Saturday, according to tribal administration figures.
UPI
Colorado Jail TV Room Death: Guards 'Not Criminally Negligent'
GOLDEN, CO – Susanne Burgaz, 55, a mother of four children, ended her life in the dayroom of the Jefferson County Detention Facility last August. A former fine artist and scenic painter for television programs, she reached the end of her earthly journey homeless, alcoholic and disabled, strangling herself with the cords of a television set, just as a deputy on "walkthrough" passed in the hallway nearby.
Patch
Knight Investigative Journalism First Prize: Unregulated cadaver parts industry helped build Rosemont’s reputation for surgical training
In January 2015, the FBI raided the Rosemont offices of a for-profit human tissue donation firm as part of an investigation of a multi-state illegal body parts ring. Biological Service Center-Illinois was renting Suite 505 of the 9501 W. Devon Ave. building, which houses Rosemont Village Hall and the police station.
Chronicle Media, LLC
Northern Illinois News Assn. First Prize, Business Reporting: Vendors vexed by Lollapalooza pay wristband problems
Food vendors at Lollapalooza worry they might be missing tens of thousands of dollars in sales transactions made with an app using electronic-pay festival wristbands, they said. The wristband system completely failed July 28, the first day of the festival, vendors said. But staff members from the Los Angeles-based point-of-service app company Appetize worked late into the night to fix connection issues, said Anthony Brunacci of Franks ’n’ Dawgs.
Chronicle Media, LLC
2014 Lisigor Winner: Mom's suicide at Riveredge came 12 hours after transfer
Diana*, of Janesville, Wisc., said goodbye to her 47-year-old comatose daughter in a hospital room at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood on June 12.
Forest Park Review
First Prize Feature Writing, IPA: One owner says 'old-man bars' are out of style in Forest Park
Call them dive bars, dumps, joints, "old-man" bars. Sorice's bars — Blueberry Hill, Shortstop and Circle Inn — are establishments where drinkers can arrive in the early hours and keep drinking till late at night. Ghostly burn-trails of long-banned cigarettes scar the bar veneer. Broken neon signs and ragged sports posters serve as decor.
Forest Park Review
Kidz News
Kidz Newz news camp released the premier issue of the newspaper written, photographed and drawn completely by local 5th thru 8th graders. The 16-page newspaper is the work of teen- and tween journalist s who attended the Kidz Newz Journalism Camp this summer, held at Ascension School. Award winning journalist Jean Lotus helped 20 junior journalists to create the articles, photos comix for the newspaper. Students in the camp attend Julian, Brooks, St. Giles, Ascension, Lincoln, Longfellow and Hatch schools. Camp included visits from professional journalists Tribune reporter Barbara Brotman and Pioneer Press reporter Bill Dwyer. Campers also visited the Wednesday Journal offices on a field trip. Campers also learned how to start their own newspaper, and how to set up a blog.

About

Jean Lotus

AP Style

Social Media

Reporting

SEO

Editing

Business profiles

Techno biz writing

Web-engaging headlines

Publicity

crowdfunding fundraising

Lover of community journalism, FOIA-sender, data scraper, detail absorber, patient listener.

Non-profit publicist, fundraiser helping to tell your story to stakeholders.

2013, 2016 Knight Investigative Journalism First Prize. 2014 Peter Lisagor award for best in-depth reporting in a non-daily newspaper.

Former reporter/night editor on a Gannett daily (Lafayette, Ind. Journal & Courier).

Currently reporter/editor for community local covering news, features, two school boards, village council, crime, park district, obits.

Business owner: Kidz News journalism camp.

Graduate, University of Chicago.

Well-told stories on the community level can speak to universal truths. Good writing will always cut through.

I love to tell stories of personal change and reinvention, especially new business ideas that take advantage of technology and new electronic social networks.

Looking for ways to improve my craft.