RuthAnn Hogue

Biography

RuthAnn Hogue is an associate faculty member of Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Telecommunications and Journalism. She previously taught journalism and writing courses for the University of Arizona and occasionally teaches workshops on time management. She holds a current Arizona teaching certificate and has taught journalism and English at Phoenix-area high schools.
Hogue has captured numerous awards for her work as a journalist, including many first-place prizes. In 1997, the Arizona Newspapers Association honored the Daily News-Sun with a first-place award in its class for Journalistic Achievement for "The Journey Home: Diary of a terminal cancer patient." Hogue was so touched by the experiences she shared with Walter and Lillian Schifter while reporting the series that she felt compelled to convert it into a book.

The result, Good-bye Walter: The Inspiring Story of a Terminal Cancer Patient, was published in September 2005. In November 2005, Barnes & Noble Booksellers recognized the title as Book of the Month for its Phoenix and Tucson-area stores. It went on to earn additional accolades as the first-place recipient for nonfiction books, memoir, in Arizona Press Women's 2006 Communications Contest. Goodbye, Walter advanced to earn second-place in national competition with the National Federation of Press Women. Hogue accepted the award in Denver in September 2006.

Since then, Ms. Hogue has accepted numerous invitations to speak in person or on the radio and to sign books at various functions and events in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Washington. Notable hosts have included Brandeis University Women, who in 2006 invited Hogue to be the first keynote speaker in an author lecture series, and A.T. Still University's Arizona School of Health Sciences, who hosted Hogue as one of two keynote speakers for its Body, Mind, Spirit Authors Luncheon in 2007.

Hogue, born in 1962, is the mother of five children. A goal she set in 1990 to become published led to a story in a national church magazine. She used the $40 she received to pay for a summer newswriting course, which set her firmly on the pathway to becoming a professional writer and editor. She enrolled in college in 1993 and graduated in August 1997 from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in Print Journalism and a minor in Political Science. She received several prestigious scholarships while attending ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Telecommunication and Journalism, including two from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.

Hogue did much award-winning work as a part-time news assistant for The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette while attending journalism classes. In addition, she wrote for local newspapers, her college newspaper, and reported the evening news live for the campus radio station. She landed her first full-time reporting position in December 1996 with the Daily News-Sun and by November 1997, had been promoted to an editing position.

As Neighbors editor for the Arizona Daily Star in the spring of 2000, she implemented a plan she developed to produce and publish daily micro-local news specific to nine geographic areas. She later went on to accept a city editorship at the Sierra Vista Herald/Bisbee Daily Review newspapers where she doubled as a writing coach. She has been news editor of the West Valley View and managing editor of the Gilbert, Chandler and Queen Creek editions of Independent Newspapers in the greater Phoenix area.

Her day job is writing Web content for phoenix.edu.

She is devoted to her family, which she says always comes first.

Books

This member has not published any books.