For the past four years, Rotarian Frank Deaver has been writing monthly editorial copy for ROTI. Having retired from the University of Alabama Journalism Faculty in 1996 after a 40-year career teaching media writing and related courses, he says this is a means of keeping his writing skills honed, while sharing his love of Rotary.

In addition to teaching news writing, Frank's primary research and publication fields are media ethics and international media. He has a PhD degree in Communication from the University of Texas, with post-graduate study in Sweden, Guatemala, and Japan. His text on media ethics has been translated into Spanish and Romanian, and excerpts into Japanese. Invited articles have been published in scholarly journals and/or media in Sweden, Guatemala, Grand Cayman, The Philippines, China, Japan, and Hong Kong.

For most of his adult life, Frank has been "preaching ethics" in and out of the classroom, and has spoken and written on ethics and the Rotary Four-Way Test in many venues. He was a speaker for Rotary Zone meetings in New Orleans and Little Rock (Zones 29-30, USA); and for district conferences in four states, plus in India, The Philippines, and Uganda.

International consulting and lecturing, sponsored by the US State Department plus various foundations and media entities, has extended his "classroom" to five continents. Media responsibility and objectivity have been major themes in countries newly emerged from authoritarian rule. Regularly finding a Rotary Club to attend during his travels, and maintaining his 38-years of perfect attendance, he has attended Rotary in 32 countries.

Frank has been a member of the Rotary Club of Tuscaloosa, Alabama (USA) since 1969. He was president in 1980-81 and since 2000 has been the club's executive director. He was Group Study Exchange team leader twice (Sweden 1975, The Philippines 1990), and polio immunization team leader to India (2000). He is a multiple Paul Harris Fellow, benefactor, and major donor. His wife, Dusti, is also a PHF. They have three children and five grandchildren.

In retirement, he continues to write for Rotary: weekly bulletin and website maintenance www.tuscaloosa.rotary-site.org for his club; a year-long series for his district on "Friends Around the World"; and monthly essays since 2003 on Rotary internet sites -- RGHF (Rotary Global History Fellowship) www.historycommittee.org, and of course ROTI (Rotarians On The Internet) www.roti.org/news.