Paul L Tsompanas

Paul L. Tsompanas returned to writing after a long career as a senior congressional staff member. Before entering the world of politics, he spent ten years as an award winning reporter for New Mexico and California newspapers. Through the years, he also has contributed articles to regional and national magazines, including his 1962 cover story in Mechanix Illustrated that introduced the world to parasailing.

While reporting for the Clovis News-Journal in New Mexico, he won a New Mexico Press Association award in 1961 for his stories about a young mother and her nursing baby who were jailed because she couldn't afford the fine for a moving traffic violation. As a congressional correspondent for Copley News Service in 1964, his exhaustive coverage of a longstanding dispute between upper and lower Colorado River basin states over water rights won a Copley Journalism Award.

A Navy veteran of two tours in the Western Pacific as a shipboard communications officer, Tsompanas also is a 1980 graduate of the National War College. He and his wife have traveled to all seven continents and reside in the small Potomac riverfront town of Colonial Beach, Virginia, where he served on its town council for eight years.