Guatemala RPCV June Wiaz is a freelance investigative journalist
June Wiaz is a freelance investigative journalist who has worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Governors' Association and for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition to co-authoring Green Empire with Kathryn Ziewitz (See.) she has recently written chapters in The Book of the Everglades, and Between Two Rivers. See her Personal Bio. JuneWiaz@MaximsNews.com
Bio of June Wiaz
June grew up in the towns of West New York and Bergenfield, New Jersey. She spent her first few summers in an actual bungalow colony where it was mandatory for the women to play mah jonnhg and for the men to smoke cigars and play poker while the kids ran around with towels around their necks and acting like super heroes. This is where June first developed her interest in environmental protection, hunting for crawfish under rocks in the river and falling out of trees.
Contrary to the lives of great writers, June did not suffer much hardship, although her dad did suffer a massive heart attack when she was just seven (and he 39). Her dad’s illness taught June to master some life skills earlier than some other kids perhaps as she and her sister had to take on more responsibilities.
She still found plenty of time to play kickball on her dead-end street and go exploring in nearby woods with a creek that she only recently has come to realize was 95 percent storm water runoff. Still, it was what passed for wilderness in northern New Jersey.
Before college, June spent two summers at a National Science Foundation program at the University of Wisconsin at Superior. She did a project on a sanitary landfill and concluded that seagulls were to blame for high levels of phosphates in nearby soil and water. This earned her an honorable mention in the Westinghouse science student talent search. June concluded they must have not had many entrants that year.
By the time June got to college, her left and right brains were at war and she found the perfect program at Lehigh University to marry her interest in environmental science with the more creative activity of writing. She graduated in 1981 and the following fall went on to study Engineering and Policy at Washington University in St. Louis.
After receiving an M.S. in 1983, June worked at a variety of jobs in the D.C. area, including science policy work at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Governors’ Association and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Somewhere in the middle of all this glee she and her husband jumped off their career ladders and served two years in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. (If you ever need to know how to build an outdoor brick oven that efficiently burns wood, call June.)
In 1996, June moved to Tallahassee with her husband and daughters when he accepted a job offer here. She cried for one year straight then came to realize that Tallahassee actually is a rather nice place – a cultural and largely politically progressive island in an otherwise, um, not so cultural and progressive part of the world.
She also came to appreciate the natural beauty of north Florida, especially the incredible freshwater springs that abound.
For the last nine years June has been a freelance writer (emphasis on the first syllable of freelance) who has written monthly columns for the Tallahassee Democrat and various other local publications.
She also did radio commentary for the local public radio affiliate, but stopped after about year as there is only so much you can say about a radio.
She has had chapters in The Book of the Everglades and Between Two Rivers, and in April 2004, she and co-author and (still!) friend Kathryn Ziewitz saw the release of their book, Green Empire: The Story of the St. Joe Co. in the Florida Panhandle.
June’s writing interests include environmental and investigative journalism as well as humor. Attempts at humor, anyway…
JuneWiaz@MaximsNews.com
