C. Dow Tate is a journalism teacher at Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, Kansas, and the director of the Gloria Shields All-American Publication Workshop sponsored by Dallas County Schools. In 2011, he was named a Kansas Teacher of the Year finalist. He was inducted into the Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame at the University of Oklahoma and was named a Texas Legend, as one of the most influential people in the state’s 75-year scholastic journalism history. His students’ publications – the newspaper, yearbook and news website -- have earned the nation’s highest honors, including the National Scholastic Press Association’s National Pacemaker and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Gold Crown. Tate has been named the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund’s National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year as well as the Texas Max R. Haddick Teacher of the Year.

Sherri A. Taylor teaches graphic design in the Multimedia, Photography and Design Department of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She is also Director of the Empire State School Press Association at Syracuse University, and Director of the School Press Institute, a summer journalism workshop for high school students. As a high school teacher in Irving, Texas, she advised a state and national award-winning yearbook and newspaper. She has been inducted into the Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame at the University of Oklahoma, was named a Pioneer from the National Scholastic Press Association and received a Gold Key from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. She also received the Max R. Haddick Teacher of the Year award, and named a Texas Legend. She has judged the Society of News Design’s international competition and judged the Katie awards for the Dallas Press Club. She advises a magazine, MPJ, that has won both Associated Collegiate Press Pacemakers and Society of Professional Journalists regional and national Best College Magazine awards.