I am currently covering medical issues for the Billings Gazette, Montana's largest newspaper, where I have been since September 2010.

I have worked at newspapers in South Dakota, Minnesota, California and Montana. Before coming to the Billings Gazette, I worked as the editorial page editor and columnist at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs.

While in Palm Springs, I was named one of Gannett's Top Ten Supervisors of the Year primarily for helping lead the effort to create a web site that run by youth, for youth.

In December 2011 I received a one-week fellowship to study at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Articles

Learning to talk about suicide

The latest spate of suicides has shaken the Crow Indian Reservation, even as Montana tribal leaders and tribal communities undertake aggressive intervention efforts to reduce the rate of suicide among their youth.

Letitia Stewart talks about losing her 21-year-old son, Edward Bee Fast Horse III, to suicide on Dec. 29, 2008. She feared her son's soul had been lost afterward, but her pastor assured her that was not the case. "That really lifted that burden. It made me feel better. I believe he's in heaven." JAMES WOODCOCK/Gazette Staff

4-year-old: 'Bee's got a gun'

A mom recounts the story of how she and her grandchildren witnessed the suicide of her son. “I was hoping there wouldn’t be too much damage," she said. "We tried to sit him up so he didn’t choke. Then I reached over and felt his pulse. I knew he was gone."

Roxanne Gourneau, a Fort Peck juvenile judge,

Mother: 'I heard him cry like I’ve never heard him cry'

Roxanne Gourneau's only son, Dalton's, death followed the suicides of six students, during a six-month period in Poplar, about 20 miles east of Wolf Point on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. These suicides have led tribal officials to declare an emergency and start taking action.

D Gregory Smith, a Bozeman-based licensed mental health counselor and executive director of AIDS Outreach, discusses the inner struggles he battled as a gay Catholic priest. JAMES WOODCOCK

LGBT youth at increased risk for suicide

Being LGBT is not a risk factor for suicide, but the stressors they encounter, like discrimination and harassment, are directly associated with suicidal behavior. The challenge of being an LGBT youth is compounded in mostly rural Montana, where there are few places for "different" people to belong.