Irv Who?
There are three things I really enjoy in life, writing, canoeing and writing about canoeing.
I began writing full-time 14 years ago when I took a job covering city government for the Times-Gazette in Ashland, Ohio. Which happened to be at the headwaters of my favorite canoeing river. Just a coincidence.
While with the Times-Gazette, I have won Associated Press awards in news writing, column writing, editorial writing, business writing, feature writing and breaking news. In 2000, I took first, second and third place respectively in news writing, editorial writing and column writing.
Prior to that, I worked freelance, writing a weekly column for the Columbus Guardian, an alternative paper in Central Ohio. There, I won a SPJ award for column writing. The columns were an extension of those I wrote for Hoot, a biweekly humor tabloid I published for about seven years in Columbus.
My columns have twice been selected for inclusion in ColdType, an international collection of the best English language works in journalism.
In its heyday, Hoot had a circulation of 20.000 including roughly 1,000 paying subscribers in 47 different states and a dozen foreign countries.
But I enjoyed writing more than the grind of selling ads, doing layout, bookkeeping and circulation for Hoot. I sold the paper for promises on the dollar and moved on.
The Guardian served as a springboard for my journalism career. My editors talked me into doing a weekly Statehouse column, which also appeared in other papers around Ohio. That, in turn, led to a few in-depth stories, including an expose of a company known as AgriGeneral.
In November 1996, I went undercover, getting a job at the company's plant in Hardin County and exposed the devastating effects of the company's practices on the community, migrant workers and the environment.
As a result of my article, which appeared in papers throughout Ohio, the company immediately gave its workers a 50’-an-hour raise and changed its name to Buckeye Egg.
You may have seen a similar story more than a year later on a national network news program. A remarkably similar story, in fact.
Prior to moving from Cleveland to Columbus and starting Hoot, I occasionally wrote freelance humor and op ed pieces for the Plain Dealer. My humor pieces appeared in the Sunday Magazine and the Friday entertainment tab.
With that business out of the way, here are a few more Irv Oslin factoids:
Other interests I'm a four-season camper and canoe bum. I also dabble in mountain biking, cross-country and downhill skiing, kayaking, hiking, nature watching and gardening.
Work history I've been a journalist, freelance writer, publisher, truck driver, factory worker, cab driver and cowboy. I also worked about seven years in the family trade bindery in Cleveland.
Education A professional student, I've studied journalism, the liberal arts, motion picture and TV production, theatre, the visual arts and pretty much anything that interested me. I never tried for a degree, but have enough credits to be the only person in history to get a PhD from a community college. I do have a postgraduate degree from the School of Hard Knocks. I majored in horticulture in High School.
Family I'm divorced and have a 38-year-old son, Irv III. He lives in Cleveland, plays a mean bass guitar and is the second coming of Bob Vila. I also have a 22-year-old daughter, Ramona, who has a college degree, a job, a horse and a daughter, Kiley, which I guess makes me a grandfather.
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| Here I am with my sister Judy and brother Jeff at Portage Lake in Ontario. They had been sitting in the boat all day and were in bad need of a chiropractor. |
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