Renowned Author Wil Haygood to Give Memorial Lecture; Thursday, April 11, 2019 at 8 p.m.

The lecture on Thursday, April 11, will honor the memory and spirit of Armando Montaño ’12, a gifted journalist who died at the age of 22 in June 2012 in Mexico City, where he was working as an intern for the Associated Press. His parents, Diane Alters ’71 and Mario Montaño, plan to attend the lecture, which they endowed, again this year.

Haygood will read from his newly published work, Tigerland, at 8 p.m. in Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, Room 101, 1115 Eighth Ave., Grinnell.

Accomplished journalist and award-winning author Wil Haygood grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and entered Miami University in 1972. As in high school, Haygood was determined to earn a spot on Miami's basketball team, and though he never became a varsity player, his relentless pursuit of a dream would serve as a demonstration of the tenacity he's shown throughout a prolific career. He graduated from Miami in 1976 with a degree in urban planning, but exhibiting a knack for storytelling early on, he began in journalism at the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette and two years later, moved to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In 1984, Haygood became a staff writer at the Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and remained there several years before becoming a writer for the Washington Post in 2002. As an investigative reporter, Haygood traveled all over the world, including France; Germany; India; South Africa, where he witnessed Nelson Mandela's liberation from prison; and Somalia, where he was kidnapped and ransomed by rebels.

In 2008 during his time at the Washington Post, Haygood wrote his article,"A Butler Well Served by This Election," which became the basis for the 2013 award-winning motion picture The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels and starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. Read Wil's insights into his article that became the impetus for the movie.

Prior to Tigerland, Haygood authored seven nonfiction books, including prize-winning and critically acclaimed biographies of 20th-century figures: Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America, King of the Cats: the Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., In Black and White: the Life of Sammy Davis Jr., and Sweet Thunder: the Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson. His other books are Two on the River, about a 2,500-mile journey down the Mississippi River, and The Haygoods of Columbus, a family memoir.

Among his journalism honors are the National Headliner Award, the New England Associated Press Award, the Sunday Magazine Editors Award, the Paul L. Myhre Single Story Award, the Virginia Press Association Award and the National Association of Black Journalist Award for both feature writing and foreign reporting, among others.

In addition to the lecture, there will be a roundtable discussion that will begin at 4:15 p.m. in Rosenfield Center, Room 209. Both the discussion and lecture, sponsored by Writers@Grinnell, are free and open to the public.

Armando Montaño ’12

The Armando Alters Montaño ’12 Writers@Grinnell Endowment Fund has been established by the parents of Armando “Mando” Montaño ’12, who died in June 2012 while working as an intern with the Associated Press in Mexico City.

Diane Alters ’71 and Mario Montaño have created the fund through a bequest to Grinnell College. The fund supports the Writers@Grinnell program in memory of their son’s dedication to nonfiction and fiction writing, journalism, and the creative process.