Mary Theresa Schmich (B.A., Pomona College) is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. The oldest of eight children, Schmich grew up in Georgia and attended high school in Phoenix, Arizona. After working in college admissions for three years and spending a year and a half in France, Schmich attended journalism school at Stanford. She has worked as a reporter at the Peninsula Times Tribune, at the Orlando Sentinel and, since 1985, at the Tribune. She spent five years as a Tribune national correspondent based in Atlanta. Her column started in 1992 and was interrupted for a year during which she attended Harvard on a Nieman Fellowship for journalists.