From the banks of Central Illinois' Boneyard Creek to the mighty Potomac, from Alaska's Inside Passage to the wilds of northern Jersey, the edge of the Ouachita Mountains to the plains of north Texas -- and now, in the warrens of Queens and Manhattan, this page is something of a chronicle of my life so far.

But it's also my resume, reference list, a few clips and sundry other professional tools. I like to think I have to keep in touch with the world, after all.

After that, I worked for the Daily Record of Morris County, New Jersey, as a municipal reporter. In October 1998, a few months after Gannett Inc. bought the Daily Record, I took a job as business reporter with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's business section. After nearly two years, I moved to Dallas as a staff writer with The Wall Street Journal's Texas Journal regional edition. Ten weeks later, the Journal shut down its regional editions, and I was transferred to the New York office to cover mutual funds.

I've covered a wide range of stories around the country, from the unveiling of the Contract with America to doctors who treat torture victims in Manhattan. I've written about Southeast Alaskan fishermen, New Jersey firefighters, New York City blacksmiths, Arkansas politicians, Texas stockpickers and Wall Street money managers. In Arkansas, I covered health care, insurance, agriculture, labor and economic development, among other topics. Since then, I have immersed myself in the world of finance, writing about stocks good and bad and covering the world of mutual funds.

In addition to other skills, I know how to use a camera and several kinds of computers and software packages to report and research stories,how to lay out a newspaper and how to get around in German and Portugese.

Between August 1996 and May 20, 1997, I attended Columbia's master's program, at first covering the northern Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood and then writing a wide variety of city stories, from features to investigative work.

In 1995, I was sole reporter, photographer and copy-editor at the Petersburg Pilot, a weekly newspaper in Southeast Alaska.

Before that, I held a four-month internship in the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Chicago Tribune.

While in college at the University of Illinois Department of Journalism, I was also a reporter and then city-state editor of the student-run Daily Illini, managing 20 part-time reporters.

On June 16, 1997, I began working at the Daily Record, covering four of the towns in the paper's circulation. In December, I was reassigned to cover Morristown -- the county seat -- and two smaller towns next to it.

I visited Arkansas for the first time in August 1998, to interview at the Democrat-Gazette. In mid-October, I packed up my car, put my pet turtle in a tank in the foot-well next to me and headed south. I stopped when I reached Little Rock, where I began work the nex day, covering everything from miserable nursing-home conditions to economic-development subsidies and hospital unionization campaigns.

My introduction to Texas was nearly as sudden. I had been to the Lone Star State just twice since childhood -- for a total of four days -- when I was offered my job with the Journal. I moved to Dallas and, on Sept. 5, 2000, started writing a stock column. My crash-course in the financial markets nearly ended when the Texas Journal closed in November, but I transferred to New York and shifted emphasis into mutual funds.

For more specific information about my qualifications, take a look at my resume, email me or use more conventional methods to contact me.

My Resume

Theo Francis
theo@theowire.com