Palmer native Baldwin wins Pulitzer Prize

PALMER — Clare Baldwin, a Colony High School graduate, is receiving a Pulitzer Prize award for her investigative journalism. Although her journey may have started in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, her talent and skills have taken her to Stanford University and then around the world as an award winning journalist.

Clare called me from Bangladesh on Monday. She is a Special Correspondent for Reuters, an international news organization. She’s now working currently on a story about the refugee crisis. She lives on a boat in an unnamed Asian country—when she isn’t on assignment.

The series of stories which received the Pulitzer is about public hospitals in the Philippines, which are covering up executions. It’s ugly. It’s a crime scene. And it was dangerous. Clare and a couple other colleagues were able to intensely address many angles of this cover-up over a period of 18 months to 2 years. This included street recordings, patterns, research, photography, video, graphics, data analysis and of course, interviews with public officials.

“This was the most exciting series to write,” Clare stated firmly. “I was able to work in every single aspect. This news matters. It has consequences. And it is a record of the drug war.”

During high school she interned at The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

“That was such a great paper and good experience for me,” she said in our phone interview.

Erick Burkett was the Senior Reporter at the paper when Clare started.

“Clare’s passion for journalism was evident the first day she interned with us,” he said. “I’m incredibly excited for her, and thrilled to see she won the prize covering a very important story, which isn’t getting nearly enough attention. Hopefully this will draw even more coverage of what’s happening in the Philippines.”

Burkett is now the Chef and Manager at Taste, one of San Francisco’s top catering companies. He is a chef with a pen, having written for the Anchorage Daily News, Chronicle, Union Democrat, Evergreen, and Food Safety News.

Former Frontiersman Editor Tracy Kalytiak is now a Program Associate for the Mat-Su Health Foundation.

“Clare’s calm focus and persistence have fascinated me for nearly two decades,” Kaytiak said. “Now I’m even more in awe of her because of the incredible courage she has shown in probing and exposing these horrors and crimes in the Philippines. Her stories are magnificent. She deserves this honor.”

Clare was always encouraged to get a good education. Both her parents are devoted teachers and instilled the value of knowledge and study. Clare says they have supported her 100 percent. Clare also says the Matanuska Susitna Valley in Alaska is definitely home.

“I visit once or twice a year and it is a really good place to come home to,” she said.

I remember Clare very well. She was part of an ongoing Writer Workshop class that I conducted in Palmer for decades. You’ve probably seen the young adults huddled around tables at Vagabond Blues Cafe on Sunday afternoons. They all have wire notebooks and their heads are down, writing seriously. There's usually a dog-eared thesaurus on the table. Sometimes, one or another will look up into space and demand, “I need a better word for “clatter.” Someone else will offer a response but some will just ignore the request because they’re intent on their own work. There’s a lot of brain muscle working at this table but occasionally there are rivers of laughter, often during critiques and writing exercises. There is also intense bonding. And this is where it all starts for many young writers. They’re safe and encouraged to write their passion.

Another Writer Workshop student with Clare was Corrie Whitmore. She is now Dr. Whitmore and Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska.

“Clare is an amazing writer—thoughtful, precise and tenacious,” Whitmore said. “I’m terrifically proud of her work and glad it’s being recognized with a Pulitzer.”

Most all of the students in my writing workshops were quite remarkable. Perhaps they didn’t all score quite so highly on social skills at the time, but they all went on to love writing and make it a major part of their lives and profession.

But today we stop, focus and congratulate our Clare Baldwin on her Pulitzer Prize. We admire her courage and her gift of writing—for and about our world.