Columnist Bill Nemitz, above left, has worked as a journalist in Maine since 1977, when he became a reporter for the Central Maine Morning Sentinel in Waterville after graduating from the University of Massachusetts.

He moved to Portland in 1983, working first as a reporter for the Evening Express and later as city editor and assistant managing editor/sports for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. Nemitz began writing his thrice-weekly column for the newspaper in 1995. In 2004, he was embedded twice with the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion in Mosul, Iraq.

Nemitz is a past president of the Maine Press Association and has taught journalism part time at Saint Joseph's College in Standish. He lives in Buxton with his wife, Andrea Nemitz. They have five children.

Shawn Patrick Ouellette, above right, joined the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram as a staff photographer in 2002.

Since that time, he has covered the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVIII, the return from Iraq of the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Battalion at Fort Drum, N.Y., and the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the Northrop Grumman shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss.

Previously, he was a staff photographer for the Journal Tribune in Biddeford from 1993 to 1997 and chief photographer there from 1997 to 2002. He lives in Saco with his wife and two daughters.