I know a Pulitzer winner!

The winners of the 2010 Pulitzers were announced Monday. The Pulitzers are the Academy Awards of journalism without evening gowns and acceptance speeches. It's the highest honor in journalism.

Tod Robberson was one of three editorial writers from the Dallas Morning News to win for editorial writing. Their entries concerned the stark economic differences between North Dallas and South Dallas.

Robberson, a native of Houston, graduated from Texas Tech. He and I were on the same staff at Tech's University Daily in 1980. I learned what I could, but mostly had a good time in sports. Tod was breaking stories every other day on news side of the five-day-a-week paper.

It was obvious Tod was going places, but who knew how far? After Tech, he got his masters in Arab Studies from Georgetown. He covered Latin America, the Middle East and Europe for primarily the Dallas Morning News but also the Washington Post.

He spent 10 years as a foreign correspondent and assistant foreign editor for the Washington Post. Among his stops at the two newspapers are Columbia, Panama, London, Lebanon, Cyprus, Iraq, Syria, and El Salvador.

I, on the other hand, have been to Samnorwood. Twice.

Finally, Tod settled in as an editorial writer for the Morning News. I, of course, would like to think some of myself rubbed off on Tod during our formative journalism years. And I'm sure it did, as in what not to do.

By my unofficial count, that gives Tech three Pulitzer winners, not counting the two or three I should have won.