Bill Loftus, the University of Idaho’s science writer, covered outdoors and environmental news for 16 years with the Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune. He led the Outdoors section, which was judged best in the nation seven times by the Outdoor Writers Association of America. He won C.B. Blethen Memorial Awards for enterprise reporting and others from the Utah-Idaho-Spokane Associated Press Association, Association for Communications Excellence, Idaho Press Club, Society of Professional Journalists and Idaho Wildlife Federation. Loftus worked on the UI announcement of Idaho Gem, the first equine clone who made news worldwide. That project won an outstanding professional skill award from the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences.

In 2006, Bill oversaw media relations for the racing debut of Idaho Gem and his brother, Idaho Star, the world’s first cloned athletes. Stories about the clones appeared in newspapers worldwide. His stories have appeared in The New York Times. He wrote a weekly outdoors column for The Associated Press and two travel guides to Idaho. He is a member of the Idaho Press Club, National Association of Science Writers and Association for Communications Excellence.

Bill earned a UI bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies in zoology and journalism. He teaches journalism classes and for three years team-taught the freshman core class “Fire, Myth and Mankind: Coming to Terms with Nature.”