Lou Chibbaro, Jr.

A prize-winning reporter for the nation’s oldest LGBT news publication, The Washington Blade, Lou Chibbaro, Jr. first took up his pen in 1976 under the pseudonym Lou Romano. Fast forward four decades, Chibbaro has covered almost everything for the Blade, including the nation’s political triumphs and protests, the rise of the AIDS epidemic, federal efforts to find and fire gay government employees and towering gay civil rights figures like the late Dr. Frank Kameny. Along the way, Chibbaro has earned countless honors, including the NLGJA’ Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for Excellence in LGBT Media Second Place Award in 2008 and the Rainbow History Project’s Community Pioneers Award and GLAA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2010. In 2011, Chibbaro made journalism history as the first LGBT inductee into the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington Pro Chapter Hall of Fame.