Nash Johnson, Jean: - Jean Nash Johnson's award-winning journalism career as a daily newspaper features writer, news and features editor and columnist spans almost three decades. With her Southern Black upbringing firmly rooted and an eye for culture, trends and lifestyles issues, Jean sought after unforeseen storylines and untold angles with a keen understanding of communities of color. She began first in Houston out of college as a cub reporter for The Houston Chronicle, and ultimately as a veteran staffer for The Dallas Morning News. In between her two newspaper periods, Jean served as staff assistant to Sen. Russell B. Long in Washington D.C. On behalf of the senator, she worked as a liaison between U.S. education and housing agencies and Louisiana government counterparts to champion federal funding needs in her home state. Before returning to Texas and resuming her daily newspaper career, after five years serving on the senator's staff, Jean went to work as assistant press secretary to the chair of the Federal Maritime Commission, and later the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1999, as millennials came of age and Zoomers came into the world, Jean's work at The News expanded, focusing on the youth voice. She established a Lifestyles teen advisory board for input on local and national stories and also created a prize-winning in-person children's book club series and wrote stories on each of its event. After retiring from daily news life, Jean turned to life in her North Texas community. As volunteer, she helped form and sponsor an afterschool campus writing club and annual writing contest at her neighborhood Title I middle school, inspiring a new generation of wordsmiths. Among her honors are the 1987 DMN Award of Excellence for Best General Interest Column, the 2001 Texas State Teachers Association School Bell Outstanding Feature Story Award, Southern Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation 2003 Literacy & Newspapers in Education Writing Award for Best Feature, and American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors 2006 Excellence in Feature Writing Contest for Short Feature.