Maura Kelly Lannan is a 1993 graduate of Boston College and an award-winning journalist who has covered politics for most of her career. She joined The Heights as a reporter in the fall of her freshman year and became assistant-to-the-editor in 1990, associate editor in 1991 and editor-in-chief in 1992, when she created the paper’s features section. Maura graduated from BC with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and communications and received the Francis A. Brick Award for Outstanding Character, Loyalty, Leadership and Scholarship during four years at Boston College, where she also was active in undergraduate government and student admissions. Maura earned a Master of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 1994. Maura, who is from Trumbull, Connecticut, began her career at the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper in Connecticut, where she covered the state Capitol, including the Legislature and governor’s office, as well as local government. Maura was a frequent guest on Connecticut political news television programs and was a panelist on the 1998 televised Connecticut gubernatorial debate. Maura later worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press. At the AP, Maura covered state government and politics, including Barack Obama when he was a state senator and U.S. Senator from Illinois. Maura has won many reporting awards from the Society of Professional Journalists in Connecticut and Chicago and was part of a team of reporters at the Chicago Tribune that won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2001 for a project about air travel problems. Maura also received the John Ring Alumni Achievement Award from The Heights in 2006. Maura lives in Potomac, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., with her husband and three children. She is a freelance reporter whose work has appeared in national newspapers and magazines. Maura joined The Heights Editorial Advisory Committee in 2020.

Greg Gagliardi (LSOE ’00) was a three-year board member at The Heights, including two years as features editor.  While at BC, he was also a member of the School of Education Honors Program, School of Education Senate President and a Resident Assistant.  He won the Rev. Wennerberg Award for school leadership and delivered the School of Education Undergraduate Commencement Address.  Greg has been teaching English and journalism at Cherry Hill High School East in New Jersey since September of 2000 and has been advising the school’s newspaper, Eastside, and online newspaper, Eastside Online, for that duration.  His publication has been named the top in NJ every year since 2009 and has won over 1,000 awards in the past two decades, including many on the national level, like the NSPA Online Pacemaker  He was named the Dow Jones Runner-Up to National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year in 2014. He has also been named Reader’s Digest’s Funniest Teacher in America in addition to receiving awards from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Disney, Cornell University, the College of New Jersey and the University of Rochester  He serves as New Jersey State Director of the Journalism Education Association and is the author of two books, the first of which is based on a humor column he started at The Heights.  He is also known as Twitter’s Most Followed Teacher in America. He lives in NJ with his wife, Melissa; daughter, Mia; and son, Nico.

Tom Sheehan found his lifelong passion at The Heights. After serving as its editor in 1970, he worked as a staff reporter for The Boston Phoenix and The Boston Business Journal, and did research for WGBH’s Ten O’Clock News, WBZ’s I-Team, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Since 1992, he has been an editor at The Boston Globe.

Jean (McMillan) Lang ’87, originally from Rhode Island, began at The Heights as an editorial assistant and finished as editor in chief in 1986. She worked for newspapers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts before becoming a staffer at The Associated Press in Boston. She worked mostly out of the Statehouse, but also covered such stories as John F. Kennedy Jr.’s fatal plane crash off Cape Cod and the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 off of Nantucket. She taught journalism for many years at Northeastern University, while freelancing for The Boston Globe and other news outlets. She’s now a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Realty in the Greater Boston area. She and her husband, an editor at The Boston Globe, have two daughters, one of whom attends Boston College.

Bob Holmes, BC ’80 and Heights Sports Editor from 1977-79. Following graduation he worked as assistant sports editor for the Beacon Newspaper chain in Acton. Then it was off to the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune for two years, the Boston Herald for 11 years, and The Boston Globe for 21 years. The last 30 years in Boston he was the High School Sports Editor. After retiring from the Globe in 2016, he worked for Patch.com covering six communities in Eastern Mass. Today, he freelances for the Globe, covers his hometown for the Reading Chronicle, and works part time for REI.