Every year thousands of Americans are dying of a condition that can be detected and treated before it kills—aortic aneurysms. But few doctors are looking for it or warning about it. A Wall Street Journal series of articles last year saved countless lives by giving readers vital information no physician had ever offered them about this condition. Those articles won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, and their lead author was a Jayhawk—Kevin Helliker.

Kevin Helliker, Chicago bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, will give a public speech at 5 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 29, in the Big 12 Room of the Kansas Union.

A KU graduate and former journalism student, Helliker will talk about the subject of his Pulitzer Prize-winning series, aortic aneurysms. He co-authored the series with fellow Wall Street Journal reporter Thomas M. Burton. While at KU, Helliker will meet with journalism students and faculty and discuss the important role journalists play in the dissemination of life-saving medical information.

"Kevin came to the Journalism School with a creative writing background and a strong desire to learn marketable journalism skills that would lead to a good job,” said Ted Frederickson, Helliker’s former journalism professor.

“By the end of my beginning reporting class, it was clear that Kevin would have his choice of numerous good job offers,” Frederickson said. “Ironically, his first University Daily Kansan story in that class was about Lawrence's underground artists—people who considered themselves musicians, novelists and sculptors, but who had to work day jobs to pay the rent. In a sense, he was one of them—a creative writer who was looking for a way that his writing would lead to a good job. To his credit, his Pulitzer-winning series on aneurysms shows that he brought his creative writing skills with him to his new profession."

Helliker began his journalism career in the Journal's Houston bureau as a reporter in 1982. He later joined the Kansas City Times and then became assistant editor at Corporate Report Kansas City magazine. In 1986, he went to Arizona Trend magazine as a writer and later managing editor.

In 1989, Helliker had a yearlong writing fellowship at Duke University before rejoining the Journal, working as a reporter in Dallas, New York and London. He was named Dallas bureau chief in May 1994 and Chicago bureau chief in May 1996.

Helliker is a Kansas City, Kan., native, who earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from KU in 1982. He took several classes from the School of Journalism while he was at KU.

For more information, please contact Jennifer Kinnard, Communications Coordinator for the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, at 785-864-7644 or jkinnard@ku.edu.