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1979: Jon D. Franklin, Baltimore Evening Sun, for an account of brain surgery.

1980: Madeleine Blais, Miami Herald, for "Zepp's Last Stand."

1981: Teresa Carpenter, Village Voice, for her account of the death of actress-model Dorothy Stratten.

1982: Saul Pett, Associated Press, for an article profiling the federal bureaucracy.

1983: Nan Robertson, The New York Times, for her memorable and medically detailed account of her struggle with toxic shock syndrome.

1984: Peter Mark Rinearson, The Seattle Times, for "Making It Fly," his 29,000-word account of the development, manufacture, and marketing of the new Boeing 757 jetliner.

1985: Alice Steinbach, The Baltimore Sun, for her account of a blind boy's world, "A Boy of Unusual Vision."

1986: John Camp, St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, for his five-part series examining the life of an American farm family faced with the worst U.S. agricultural crisis since the Depression.

1987: Steve Twomey, The Philadelphia Inquirer, for his illuminating profile of life aboard an aircraft carrier.

1988: Jacqui Banaszynski, St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, for her moving series about the life and death of an AIDS victim in a rural farm community.

1989: David Zucchino, The Philadelphia Inquirer, for his richly compelling series, "Being Black in South Africa."

1990: Dave Curtin, Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, for a gripping account of a family's struggle to recover after its members were severely burned in an explosion that devastated their home.

1991: Sheryl James, St. Petersburg Times, for a compelling series about a mother who abandoned her newborn child and how it affected her life and those of others.

1992: Howell Raines, The New York Times, for "Grady's Gift," an account of the author's childhood friendship with his family's black housekeeper and the lasting lessons of their relationship.

1993: George Lardner Jr., The Washington Post, for his unflinching examination of his daughter's murder by a violent man who had slipped through the criminal justice system.

1994: Isabel Wilkerson, The New York Times, for her profile of a fourth-grader from Chicago's South Side and for two stories reporting on the Midwestern flood of 1993.

1995: Ron Suskind, The Wall Street Journal, for his stories about inner-city honor students in Washington, D.C., and their determination to survive and prosper.

1996: Rick Bragg, The New York Times, for his elegantly written stories about contemporary America.

1997: Lisa Pollak, The Baltimore Sun, for her compelling portrait of a baseball umpire who endured the death of a son while knowing that another son suffers from the same deadly genetic disease.

1998: Thomas French, St. Petersburg Times, for his detailed and compassionate narrative portrait of a mother and two daughters slain on a Florida vacation, and the three-year investigation into their murders.

1999: Angelo B. Henderson, The Wall Street Journal, for his portrait of a druggist who is driven to violence by his encounters with armed robbery, illustrating the lasting effects of crime.

2000: J.R. Moehringer, Los Angeles Times, for his portrait of Gee's Bend, an isolated river community in Alabama where many descendants of slaves live, and how a proposed ferry to the mainland might change it.

2001: Tom Hallman, Jr., The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), for his poignant profile of a disfigured 14-year old boy who elects to have life-threatening surgery in an effort to improve his appearance.

2002: Barry Siegel, Los Angeles Times, for his humane and haunting portrait of a man tried for negligence in the death of his son, and the judge who heard the case.

2003: Sonia Nazario, Los Angeles Times, for "Enrique's Journey," her touching, exhaustively reported story of a Honduran boy's perilous search for his mother who had migrated to the United States.

2004: not awarded

2005: Julia Keller of Chicago Tribune, for her gripping, meticulously reconstructed account of a deadly 10-second tornado that ripped through Utica, Ill.

2006: Jim Sheeler of Rocky Mountain News, for his poignant story on a Marine major who helps the families of comrades killed in Iraq cope with their loss and honor their sacrifice.