(Posted September 25, 2006)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Thomas Hylton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of "Save Our Land, Save Our Towns," will speak on how comprehensive planning can save the nation's cities and countryside from rampant development at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 2 in Alumni Hall in the Brumbaugh Academic Center on the Juniata campus.
The lecture is free and open to the public. The talk is part of several lectures throughout the year with the theme, "A Sense of Place."
Hylton won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for the Pennsylvania newspaper The Pottstown Mercury as he wrote a series of editorials advocating the preservation of farmland and open space in southeastern Pennsylvania. He also published a coffee-table book, "Save Our Land, Save Our Towns," which in turn inspired a 60-minute PBS documentary called "Save Our Land, Save Our Towns." The film has been aired on more than 100 PBS stations nationwide.
Currently, Hylton is president of the nonprofit corporation, Save Our Land, Save Our Towns Inc. He gives more than 350 presentations a year on land-use planning and community building. He is an organizing member of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a civic coalition dedicated to land use reform, and the founder of Trees Inc., a local agency that raised almost $500,000 to plant and maintain street trees in Pottstown, Pa.
Hylton is a native of Wyomissing, Pa, and wrote for the Pottstown daily paper for 22 years. He won the American Planning Association's annual journalism award three times and received a Society of Professional Journalists fellowship in 1993 to study state planning issues.
Hylton and his agency champions the use of regional planning, growth boundaries and traditional town design. He remains active as a journalist, writing op-ed articles and opinion features for such newspapers as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Baltimore Sun and many more.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.