Senior associate editor Thomas Lake grew up in DeKalb County and spent seven years writing for newspapers, most recently the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, where his story subjects included a man who shot a woodpecker because he was hungry, a habitual traffic violator with no arms and one leg, and a boy who did math for ten hours a day in an attempt to climb out of poverty. In 2008 he won a first-place writing award from the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors. His first magazine story, about a basketball game where two players beat five, was published in Sports Illustrated.