Kristine Meldrum Denholm
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As an award-winning independent journalist and writer, my bylined work has appeared in USA TODAY Sports, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, USA TODAY High School Sports, Washington Post.com, Northern Virginia Magazine, Family Circle, Balanced Living, POLICE Mag., Cleveland/Akron Family, Mahoning Valley Parent, NJ Family, Washington FAMILY and more.
Essays published in:Chicken Soup for a Dog's Life (Simon & Schuster), Chocolate for a Teen's Soul (Simon & Schuster), Sasee, ScaryMommy, Cleveland Plain Dealer, ShareWIK.com, and Finger Lakes Magazine.
Hired pen: Writer | editor | ghostwriter | proofreader | beta reader
Member, ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors); BA, Journalism
Experienced in writing and editing features, newsletters, blog posts, speeches, press releases, bios, histories & social media content.
COMING SOON: my debut novel, A Song From the 70s. Stay tuned!
Here’s how Northern Virginia is tackling the nationwide opioid crisis
Opioid overdoses have become the leading cause of unnatural death in Virginia. As the state confronts the national public health crisis, local doctors are on the front lines.
Dr. Karla Lacayo remembers a 21-year-old who was brought in to the emergency room by an alert friend who said she was sleepy. As the triage nurses wheeled her in, she turned blue. With the hallmark symptoms of an opioid overdose—slowing respiratory rate, arousal difficulty, constricted pupils—they immediately gave her nalo
Meet the man behind the nation’s first free, online breast cancer school
Jessica, 49, a mom and teacher in Prince William County, remembers the moment her life changed. (For health privacy, Jessica asked we not use her real name.) She’d found a lump, seen her doctor, had mammograms, an ultrasound and surgical biopsy. She awaited results anxiously, trying to focus on teaching a classroom of kids. And then she got the call. Malignant. It was invasive ductal carci
Baby Steps: Telehealth is on the rise with millennial parents. Here’s why.
You can hear the elation in new mom Kasia Krolikowska's voice when talking about her son, Liam, born in February. “He’s a joy! We enjoy him so much,” she says. But she wasn’t always beaming. Krolikowska, 31, “cried three times a day” when he wouldn’t latch. A Gaithersburg health educator, “it didn’t cross my mind it would be hard,” she says. She didn’t know where to turn. Her family—her mother and sister both had breastfed—live in Poland. A hospital lactation consultant told her she might not be able
Does this new Northern Virginia medical campus hold the key to conquering cancer?
Talk to oncologist Dr. John F. Deeken, acting CEO of the Inova Schar Cancer Institute, and you’ll feel revitalized by his energy and hope in the fight against cancer here in Northern Virginia. In recent interviews with Northern Virginia Magazine, Deeken laid out Inova’s vision for the new Schar Cancer Instit
Are abdominal injuries football's next concussion story?
At Taylor Haugen’s first game of the year, in 2008, the Niceville (Fla.) Eagles were playing their rival. The sophomore wide receiver reached up to catch a pass and was pummeled from the front and back. He tried to join the huddle on the next play, but struggling, his coach called him off the field.
Her child wincing in pain, Kathy Haugen rushed to the fence behind the sideline. “When he came off the field, I knew. I just knew,” she said, describing her son as pale and gray. The team doctor bel
When painkilling becomes an addiction for young athletes
Cameron Weiss’ mom remembers the competitive streak in her blonde-haired, smiling boy who started soccer at age 5.
“When all the little 5-year-olds would cluster at the ball, he’d be right in there, trying to get the ball,” she said, laughing. By the time he was playing football for La Cueva High School in Albuquerque, N.M., he was thriving in competition, becoming a wrestler, too.
But it began to unravel. He broke his collarbone at football practice sophomore year. An urgent care center prescribed him the opiate Percocet — an oxycodone painkiller, which he took immediately and again after surgery. But afte
Former NBA player Chris Herren warns of dangers of painkillers
At the beginning of a promising NBA career, point guard Chris Herren was drafted in the second round by the Denver Nuggets, and the next year, played for his hometown Boston Celtics. He was also addicted to painkillers. “I was taking 1600 milligrams a day. A year and a half later I switched to heroin and was spending 25K a month,” he told USA Today High School Sports.
Clean and sober since 2008 — after a car crash left him dead for 30 seconds — he now speaks to schools about drug abuse, includi
Gehrig's speech inspires others diagnosed with ALS
Eric Von Schaumburg, 30, of Chicago loves baseball. A White Sox fan who feels the words of Lou Gehrig's famous speech. The 75th anniversary was Friday.
"I remember doing school projects on Lou Gehrig and running around the house, saying, 'I consider myself (myself myself) the luckiest man (man man) on the face of this earth (earth earth).' I thought it was the coolest and most inspirational speech ever. Then, things came full circle," the former high school second baseman writes when contacted
Pro figure skaters like Olympian Michael Weiss teaching skating for hockey players
You might not expect an Olympic figure skater to use the word “explosive” when teaching young hockey players on the ice.
After all, figure skating is the epitome of quiet grace and elegant power, right?
But three-time U.S. national champion Michael Weiss, 38, is doing just that, teaching explosiveness to high school hockey players at an ice rink in Reston, Va. At a freestyle session after school one day, parents watch as their girls – perhaps the next Gracie Golds — glide and spin. But in the
Chasing Ghosts In a Civil Rights Era Cop Killing
Maevella Moore, 75, is like any doting mama and grandma. She beams with pride when she talks about her grandchildren, about how the kids and grandkids have gone to college and married, and how one grandchild is in law school. She'll say how she's even a great-grandma now to a 7-year-old.
And like a proud wife, she talks about her husband. She'll tell you about how O'Neal Moore worked the late shift as one of the first black deputies of the Washington Parish (La.) Sheriff's Office. She remembers
When you don't feel a lump: Catching Breast Cancer Early- Three NoVA women share their stories
Nancy Zimini of Manassas, then 49, was surprised when the radiologist at Sentara Hospital asked to capture extra images of her right breast during her yearly mammogram. Eighty-five percent chance it’s nothing, she was told. “But there was this tiny gray-and-white cluster.”
Zimini agreed to a biopsy in which a needle extracts suspicious cells during a computer-aided mammogram or ult
Mom advocates for CTE awareness following son's suicide after football career
As the national spotlight is on the first acknowledgement by an NFL official of a link between football and the brain disease CTE this week, Karen Zegel of Philadelphia wants to tell her family’s story, too.
She blames her son’s suicide in 2014 on CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, found in autopsies of many former football players.
Patrick Risha was a coach’s son and a football star in a Western Pennsylvania town deeply engrained in the game and then went to the Ivy League at Dartmouth
Trek to the big screen: the real 1987 McFarland, USA runners share their paths
When the Disney machine rolls into your farm town to tell your high school team’s story — you know, the one where you toiled as a kid for hours with your migrant worker family, pruning trees, picking peaches, raking walnuts and hoeing weeds, then you raced home to practice a grueling 6-mile run called for by a coach building against-all-odds champions, oh that little story? — it’s thrilling and humbling.
Just ask Danny, David or Damacio Diaz, who, along with their 1987 cross country teammates a
Legendary cross country coach Jim White, the man behind McFarland: 'It’s all in the attitude'
Retired McFarland High School cross country coach Jim White speaks with joy in his voice in a phone interview from Hollywood, where they had an advance screening of Disney’s McFarland, USA, a based-on-a-true-story movie about the 1987 rise of a California state cross country championship contender from fields of migrant workers. The movie opens Friday.
“Have you seen the movie yet?” he asks. “It’s really good. We showed it to 300 people last night at Pepperdine, because I went to school there.
Diabetes in play: High school athletes don’t let it stop them
At a camp three years ago when he was 12, wrestler Zach McCauley’s blood sugar level dropped. He says he hadn’t passed out yet, but was dozing in a corner. The coaches hadn’t shared the information McCauley had diabetes, and one saw him “sleeping.”
“One of the coaches started throwing Post-it notes at me, saying, ‘This isn’t nap time!’ But my brother was there, and he said, ‘He’s a diabetic, he’s not napping.’” They ran to get the athletic trainer, who gave him juice immediately. He felt better
How parents of the '80s can connect with their kids
Is yoga the secret weapon for an athlete's body?
Every morning Eastern Kentucky forward Eric Stutz puts on a Pandora yoga station, sits cross-legged, meditates and breathes his way into poses for the next hour. He repeats the routine at the end of the day.
Perhaps a 6-8, 225-pound college b
Jerry Colangelo urges sports business students: 'Don’t wait for someone to come for you … earn your spot”
It has been a hectic time for Jerry Colangelo, 76, who has built an almost 50-year career in sports management, from the youngest general manager in pro sports with the Phoenix Suns in 1968; a former owner of the Suns, Diamondbacks, Rattlers and Coyotes; to chairman of the Board of Governors for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and head of USA Basketball since 2005.
Named manager of basketball operations on Dec. 7 for the Philadelphia 76ers, he spoke with USA Today High School Spo
Turning your love of sports into a college major and a career
That moment when you realize you won’t play in college. Or beyond.
Now what? Can you still plan a career in sports?
Yes, consider studying sports management, says an assistant dean and three former high school athletes. All agree that sports business is a highly competitive field. Yet even if you don’t play at the NCAA level, you can still follow your passion by studying and working in fields such as sales, marketing, event planning, law, or facility management, they say. And that’s not even i
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