Kathy Lohr
Whether covering the manhunt and eventual capture of Eric Robert Rudolph in the mountains of North Carolina, the remnants of the Oklahoma City federal building with its twisted metal frame and shattered glass, flood-ravaged Midwestern communities, or the terrorist bombings across the country, including the blast that exploded in Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, correspondent Kathy Lohr has been at the heart of stories all across the nation.
Lohr was NPR's first reporter based in the Midwest. She opened NPR's St. Louis office in 1990 and the Atlanta bureau in 1996. Lohr covers the abortion issue on an ongoing basis for NPR, including political and legal aspects. She has often been sent into disasters as they are happening, to provide listeners with the intimate details about how these incidents affect people and their lives.
Lohr filed her first report for NPR while working for member station KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and began her journalism career in commercial television and radio as a reporter/anchor. Lohr also became involved in video production for national corporations and taught courses in television reporting and radio production at universities in Kansas and Missouri. She has filed reports for the NPR documentary program Horizons, the BBC, the CBC, Marketplace, and she was published in the Saturday Evening Post.
Lohr won the prestigious Missouri Medal of Honor for Excellence in Journalism in 2002. She received a fellowship from Vanderbilt University for work on the issue of domestic violence. Lohr has filed reports from 27 states and the District of Columbia. She has received other national awards for her coverage of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Midwestern floods of 1993, and for her reporting on ice storms in the Mississippi Delta. She has also received numerous awards for radio pieces on the local level prior to joining NPR's national team. Lohr was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. She now lives in her adopted hometown of Atlanta, covering stories across the southeastern part of the country.
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A federal appeals court has ruled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cannot be held responsible for the catastrophic flooding that took place in some New Orleans neighborhoods after Hurricane Katrina. The panel had ruled differently in March. Hundreds of property owners had sued the federal government saying a shipping channel made the flooding worse.
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Florida A&M University held a meeting on Thursday for students to talk about hazing. Last November drum major Robert Champion died in a hazing incident, and more than a dozen students face criminal charges. The event thrust the university and the issue of hazing into the national spotlight.
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For the first time in decades, the historically black college in Tallahassee played its first home game of the season without its famous Marching 100 band. The band was suspended for the year after drum major Robert Champion died as a result of a hazing incident last November. -
Since Republican Rep. Todd Akin first said the words "legitimate rape" last weekend, just about everyone in the Republican Party has condemned those comments. That includes vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. But it's also put a spotlight on Ryan's anti-abortion legislation and voting record. -
Twenty years ago, Homestead, Fla., was in the eye of what was then the worst storm to hit the U.S. Hurricane Andrew wiped out nearly every building here. After a shaky couple of years, Homestead rebuilt, and by 2007, it was the fastest-growing city in Florida. And then the housing bust hit. -
One question left unanswered by President Obama's immigration action was what the policy change will mean for students. In Georgia, where illegal immigrants are banned from attending five public colleges, one professor says she worries students could identify themselves and end up at risk. -
The idea that anyone can make it in the U.S. is personified by immigrant success stories. But what if you came to America for a better life, worked hard and made it — but now face an increasingly anti-immigrant environment? One South Carolina family continues to have faith that the next generation will have it better. -
The Senate version of the bill aims to do away with direct payments to farmers by expanding crop insurance programs. Some Georgia farmers say that will favor Midwestern farmers and leave those in the South without a safety net. -
Several states are debating "wrongful birth" laws that would prevent parents from suing a doctor who fails to warn them about fetal problems. Critics say the laws give doctors the right to withhold information so women don't have abortions. -
Newt Gingrich has experienced a long slide since March 6, when he won Georgia's Republican primary. It was his second and final victory of the campaign season, but Gingrich fought to stay in the race through a Southern strategy that never caught on.
