Lauder, Val

Fresh off the campus of Northwestern University, Val Lauder arrived at the Chicago Daily News in the last months of World War II. She wanted to be a foreign correspondent, but was a copygirl -- apparently, the first copygirl at the Daily News, as the war drained the pool of traditional copyboys. Trained by the editors of the Daily News -- her mistakes are humorous, now -- she would go on to win 18 First Place state press awards, a National First Place award, and be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. A year to the day she started, she was entrusted by the Daily News with a column that would run fo...