Gus Thomson, reporter, (530) 852-0232, gust@goldcountrymedia.com, FAX (530) 887-1231

Gus Thomson has been working professionally for daily newspapers in the United States and Canada since 1981, winning national and regional awards for reporting. He has been writing for daily newspapers since 1972. Married with three children, Thomson is a 19-year Auburn resident. With the Journal for 19 years, he has twice been named Employee of the Year, most recently in 2000 for the Gold Country Media cluster that includes several newspapers in Placer County. He has also received the Gold Country Media Excellence in Journalism Award. Thomson is part of an editorial board at the Journal that has won an award for excellence from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for editorial pages. Thomson covers county government, water issues, transportation, history and movies. For the past three years, he has also written a weekly, Auburn-centric "Media Life" column. "Journalism as I've known it for the past 36 years has always been in a state of transition," Thomson said. "I started out writing stories on a typewriter to be typeset in the back shop. Today, technology is rapidly changing our concepts of what I do and what journalism is. I'm embracing those opportunities for change and growth with the enthusiasm I would compare to an explorer embarking on a new adventure."