Joe starita biography

PERSONAL: Born November 13, 1948, in Lincoln, NE; son of Michael (a grocery store manager) and Helen (a homemaker; maiden name, Hansen) Starita; married Melissa Malkovich (a television producer), August 30, 1983; children: Jesse Daniel. Education: University of Nebraska, B.A., 1978, M.A., 1995. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, movies, music, hiking, tennis, skiing, fishing.

ADDRESSES: Office—College of Journalism and Mass Communications, 239 Anderson Hall, P.O. Box 880443, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0443. Agent—Frank Weimann, The Literary Group, 270 Lafayette St., Ste. 1505, New York, NY 10012. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer, educator. Worked as a professional basketball player in Ankara, Turkey, a volunteer on an Israeli kibbutz, a dishwasher in Switzerland, and held a variety of odd jobs in such European cities as Paris, London, Rome, Athens, and Barcelona; collected water samples from polluted New Jersey rivers; worked on the loading docks of a Pepsi bottling plant in Lincoln, NE; operated a jackhammer for a construction crew in Oakland, CA; worked at a box factory in San Francisco, CA; Miami Herald, Miami, FL, reporter at Naples bureau, 1979–80, city hall reporter at Fort Lauderdale-Broward bureau, 1980–81, city desk reporter in Miami, 1981–83, New York bureau chief, 1983–87, member of investigations team in Miami, 1987–91; freelance writer in Lincoln, NE, 1991–97; Lincoln Star Journal, city editor, 1997–2000; University of Nebraska College of Journalism, associate professor, 2000–. Guest lecturer at the University of Nebraska and Nebraska Wesleyan University, 1992–95; coached youth league basketball and organized toy and clothing drives for Native Americans, 1992–95.

MEMBER: Nebraska State Historical Society, Morrill Hall Natural History Museum, Friends of the Sheldon Film Theater, Sigma Delta Chi, Kappa Tau Alpha.

AWARDS, HONORS: Nat

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Joe Starita, 75, is an educator on several levels. As a professor in the College of Journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he has been an educator in the literal, most traditional sense. He also, however, has educated the general public through investigative reporting of current events and publishing books about Native American history, a particular interest of his.

“If you grow up in Nebraska, you grow up in a place where there is a large Native American footprint,” said Starita. “You get exposed to Native American things just by virtue of growing up in a state that is named after an Oto word.” In the Oto language, “Nebraska” means “flat water,” named in reference to the Platte River.

Starita’s first exposure to Native American history was learning about Chief Crazy Horse when his family visited Fort Robinson. At age 10, Starita became “a Crazy Horse groupie,” and in the fall of his 6th grade year, Starita’s class was tasked with writing a four-page paper about someone they admired. Starita wrote a 40-page paper about his newfound hero. “It was the lead domino that set off a chain of dominoes that has run through the course of my life,” he said.

That course has taken him not only on physical journeys across the world, but educational ones as well.

“I would say there are basically five different chapters in my life,” Starita said. The first was as a young athlete; Starita went to UNL on a baseball scholarship and pitched for two years until he tore his rotator cuff. After that, he played professional basketball in Turkey. When the basketball season ended in Turkey, Starita became a “global roustabout, seeing the world and doing a lot of pretty wild things.” One of these wild things was working on a kibbutz in Israel. “The first night I ate dinner in the communal dining room, I sat next to an elderly Yugoslavian woman who had lost eight members of her family at Auschwitz

STARITA, Joe. American, b. 1948. Genres: Adult non-fiction. Career: Worked as a professional basketball player in Ankara, Turkey; also worked as a volunteer on an Israeli kibbutz, a dish washer in Switzerland, and held a variety of odd jobs in such European cities as Paris, London, Rome, Athens, and Barcelona; collected water samples from polluted New Jersey rivers; worked on the loading docks of a Pepsi bottling plant in Lincoln, NE; operated a jackhammer for a construction crew in Oakland, CA; worked at a box factory in San Francisco, CA; Miami Herald (newspaper), Miami, FL, reporter at Naples Bureau, 1979-80, city hall reporter at Fort Lauderdale/ Broward Bureau, 1980-81, city desk reporter in Miami, 1981-83, New York Bureau Chief, 1983-87, member of investigations team in Miami, 1987-91; freelance writer in Lincoln, NE, 1991-; Lincoln Journal Star, city editor, 1997-2000; University of Nebraska, College of Journalism, associate professor, 2000-. Guest lecturer at universities. Publications: The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge: A Lakota Odyssey (nonfiction), 1995. Contributor to newspapers. Address: 3145 S 29th St, Lincoln, NE 68502, U.S.A. Online address:[email protected]