November 22, 2009
Alonzo Weston - Reporter/Columnist
Alonzo Weston joined the St. Joseph News-Press in 1989 as an intern. He currently covers education and mental health and is also an award-winning columnist.
The St. Joseph native is a 2002 graduate of the inaugural class of the Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He has been voted the city’s favorite newspaper columnist for the past 12 years. He has also won numerous Missouri Press Association awards for his columns, features and investigative reporting.
He’s been published in magazines and has had byline stories in the Nashville Tennessean, and the New York Daily news He has been voted the city’s Favorite Newspaper Columnist for the past eight years. He has also won Missouri Press Association awards for his columns and features.
Alonzo is also active in the community in a number of ways. He and former News-Press editor Mark Sheehan started the Coleman Hawkins jazz festival in the city 11 years ago to honor the jazz legend and St. Joseph native.
The duo also created the Coleman Hawkins Mardi Gras parade and blues festival and hosted an all night youth basketball tournament to help raise funds for local community agencies.
Alonzo has served on the St. Joseph library board is currently a research associate for St. Joseph Museums. He received the YWCA/ NAACP Kelsey Beshears Racial Justice Award in 2005. The East Side Rotary Club also recognized Alonzo for his work by awarding him its Community Service award in 2004.
He and his wife, Deanna, who works as an interview coordinator for the Northwest Missouri Children’s Advocacy Center, have been married for 16 years. They have two children, Alonzo Jr., and Nicole Hughes, one granddaughter, Asia Ann Weston, and a dog named Maxwell.
Alonzo enjoys reading, jazz and playing sports video games.
Recent Stories
Characters set the stage for children’s programming
Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009
Claudia Black saw “Sesame Street” for the first time from a 12-inch TV in Ethiopia. She lived there on a military base with her husband, Bill, and young son, Ed, for 2½ years in the early 1970s.
“MASH” reruns and days-old American sporting events took up most of the six-hour TV broadcast day. “Sesame Street” was the only children’s programming available. But it was more than good enough, Mrs. Black said.
“The conversations, the music, the characters and their behaviors, the positive messages and teaching shared through this production meant a great deal to me,” she said.
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
Down a steep grassy hill and to your left, after you pass through the front gate of the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Weston, Mo., sits the “colored section.”
New alcoholism drug gives addicts a chanceFriday, Nov. 13, 2009
David More ran away from home at 9. He experimented with drinking at 13. When he turned 17, his brother, after getting into a scuffle with him, committed suicide with their father’s pistol.
By the time he was 21, the Independence, Mo., man said he was pretty much an alcoholic.
“That’s when my experimenting went into overdrive,” Mr. More said. It got even worse in his 20s, when his son was killed in a car wreck.
Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009
UNION STAR, Mo. — A fidgety huddle of grade-schoolers anxiously watched the military green Humvee pull up in the Union Star R-II School parking lot Wednesday afternoon.
Memories of childhoodWednesday, Nov. 11, 2009
Those cinnamon bears were addictive. And in the days of penny candy, every kid knew you got 2 cents for every empty pop bottle you turned in to the grocery store.
John Beasley - “Positootly” (Resonance Records)Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009
Easily Beasley's most potent and personal recording to date.
Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009
Matt Ziesel received a standing ovation Monday night and he didn’t even have to score a touchdown this time.
MAP test among country’s hardestMonday, Nov. 9, 2009
St. Joseph School District officials have long said that Missouri may have one of the toughest state student assessment tests in the nation — the Missouri Assessment Program. Now there’s a study to back up that assertion.
The National Center for Education Statistics released a report last week that showed MAP standards in reading and math are among the most rigorous in the nation. Missouri rated second highest of all states in three out of four measured areas in the study.
Friday, Nov. 6, 2009
The eight pieces selected on the album span some 25 years in the Michael Brecker library and are culled form seven different recordings.
Fewer voters turn out 2nd time
Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009
The passage of the school levy Tuesday might make the case that “yes” voters have more tenacity than “no” voters.
Unofficial polling numbers for the St. Joseph School District’s property tax levy increase show a lower voter turnout than in April. There were 2,000 fewer people who voted in the November election. There were 2,127 fewer “no” votes than in April, but only 50 fewer “yes” votes than seven months ago.
“The ‘yes’ votes were tremendously consistent with what the ‘yes’ vote was in April,” said Pat Conway, Buchanan County clerk.
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