The Back Page: The Personal Face of History -- be it the leaders now found in history books, the stars still found in the amusement p Tapa blanda - 2012

Fresh off the campus of Northwestern University, Val Lauder arrived at the Chicago Daily News in the last months of World War II. She wanted to be a foreign correspondent, but was a copygirl -- apparently, the first copygirl at the Daily News, as the war drained the pool of traditional copyboys. Trained by the editors of the Daily News -- her mistakes are humorous, now -- she would go on to win 18 First Place state press awards, a National First Place award, and be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. A year to the day she started, she was entrusted by the Daily News with a column that would run for seven years -- thrice weekly at first, then daily -- during which time she would be featured in the Press sections of Time and Newsweek, and become the subject of a feature in Woman's Home Companion titled "Cub Editor" and a cover story in Quill & Scroll. Following her years at the Chicago Daily News, she undertook a two-year, 17-state lecture tour, and this past June retired from the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she taught Feature Writing for 30 years. She is currently and has been for many years a biographee in Who's Who of American Women, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World.