Holly Edgell is journalist, consultant and journalism teacher/trainer based in St. Louis. She comes to the roster of SPJ Committee leaders with experience in journalism and academia.

Before hanging out her own shingle in February 2012, Edgell served as one of two regional editors for Patch in metro St. Louis, where she hired a team of 13 journalists to launch and grow 12 community news and information websites.

Edgell joined Patch from her position as an assistant professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and the Emmy-award winning executive producer at KOMU-TV (NBC) in Columbia, MO. She also served as the adviser for the Missouri School of Journalism student chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Her previous experience includes jobs as a newscast producer in Youngstown, Ohio, at WFMJ-TV and in Pittsburgh at WTAE-TV. Edgell's career later took her to Cleveland, where she worked as medical news producer at duopoly WOIO-TV and WUAB-TV, and to Detroit's WDIV-TV, where she worked as consumer news producer. Edgell spent more than four years as an assistant professor in Florida A&M University's journalism school.

At age 21, Edgell was the first news director for Great Belize Television in Belize, where she was born. She helped launch “News 5,” the first independent (non-government) television news program to air in that country. Edgell earned a master's degree in journalism with a concentration in media management at Kent State University in Ohio. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Michigan State University. She has traveled extensively in Africa, Asia, North America and Europe and speaks Spanish.

In her spare time, Edgell coordinates training for journalists and aspiring journalists in Belize, in conjunction with the University of the West Indies, Open Campus.

She also writes fiction and had her short story, “The Means and the End,” published in Picayune Lit Review. Her story, “Heaven and the Deep Blue Sea” appears in two journals: Pisgah Lit Review and Dialogo.

College Membership Subcommittee Chair

Tara Puckey
PO Box 7144
Fishers, IN 46038
765-730-4283
E-mail
Twitter
Bio (click to expand) Tara Puckey is a freelance journalist based in Indianapolis, Indiana. She always enjoyed writing, premiering her work at the age of three with “Blue Dot, Yellow Dot,” a story about two colors that befriended each other. Later, she participated in the Young Authors competition and wrote an article for American Way magazine. Sadly, there's no link to that since it was written before the Internet existed. Later in life, after choosing journalism in a list of alphabetical majors, she fell in love with the business. In 2011, she graduated from IU School of Journalism at IUPUI with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, with High Distinction. At that point, she had been freelancing for four years and won several national awards. Part of a military family, Puckey originally focused her freelance business on military media. Later, she expanded to offer web design, branding, editing and other services. She is especially fond of working with small, local businesses and non-profits.