Get your copy of our weekly print products at any of these convenient locations.
David Callender -- reporter
One of David Callender's career highlights at The Capital Times came the year before he was hired. It was June 8, 1984, and a massive tornado had swept through Barneveld in the middle of the night and leveled it. David was on the scene an hour later, and brought back the first news accounts and photos of the disaster that killed nine people.
Pounding out the story later that morning, Capital Times Associate Editor John Patrick Hunter came over to congratulate David. He replied that he would really like it if the paper would hire him, to which Hunter responded: "That's it, kid. Strike while the iron is hot!"
David did that often over the next 24 years, covering everything from a toothless, wrestling bear (first-hand) to the Fitchburg City Council and Dane County government and the Madison schools before arriving at the state Capitol, where he has been based for the last 13 years. An expert on politics and policy, David built a deep network of sources and excelled at turning around sharp analyses about what was going to happen next and why. It takes a master writer to make the often tedious work of government relevant for readers, but it was routine for David.
It was also at the Capitol that he broke open the scandal in 2001 about the cruel treatment of prisoners at the new, total-isolation state prison at Boscobel known as Supermax. It took federal lawsuits to force the prison to treat inmates with some dignity, but it was David's vivid story of a 17-year-old car thief who landed in a nightmare institution built for the "worst of the worst" that opened the public's eyes to what was really happening there.
He also brought an international dimension to the newsroom. Callender spent a year on a Rotary scholarship in the Philippines, where he met his wife, Eloisa, who has also written for The Capital Times. He covered the December 1989 attempted coup d'etat that came close to toppling President Cory Aquino. Then last year, he and Eloisa reported from Manila on another attempted coup -- almost to 18 years the day.
He will be putting his many skills to work in his new job as a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Counties Association.
From Chris Murphy, city editor
David Callender
