Melvin Claxton, 37, a reporter for the Daily News in the Virgin Islands, first joined the paper in 1985.

A native of Antigua, Claxton began his journalism career in 1982 while still a college student, as the managing editor of the University of the Virgin Islands newspaper.

He went on to work as the managing editor of the Monthly VI Magazine, Discovery and in 1987 he became the founding editor of Probe Magazine, a weekly magazine in St. Croix. In 1989 Claxton came back to the Daily News as a Weekly Columnist and in 1994 he went back to reporting.

J. Lowe Davis project editor	Edward C. Jones photographs	Nancy Graham graphics
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