Greg Barrett
Encyclopedia
Greg Barrett is an American author, freelance writer, public speaker, and Pulitzer Prize-nominated newspaper and wire journalist. He lives with his wife and two sons in the Northern Virginia suburbs near Washington, D.C.
, a Hawaiian princess, philanthropist and the great-granddaughter of King Kamehameha I. The Hawaiians-only school, formally known as Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate or KSBE, was managed by the five trustees of Bishop Estate, Hawaii's largest private landowner. Barrett's reports on the micromanaging of Kamehameha Schools unleashed critics of Bishop Estate, which led to an investigation of the estate by Hawaii's State Attorney General. By 1998 the trustees, each of whom were being paid between $800,000 to $900,000 annually, had voluntarily resigned or been permanently removed by the state. That same year the faculty organization at Kamehameha Schools nominated Barrett for a Pulitzer Prize for reports that helped "to break open the secretive affairs of KSBE (Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate) with unprecedented charges by alumni and faculty of mismanagement of the Kamehameha Schools." Barrett's investigation of KSBE is credited in various books for helping to bring about change at Kamehameha Schools and Bishop Estate.
Education & Early Career
He was born Gregory Lane Barrett in Bristol, TN., on 23 November 1961. He grew up in Bristol, Va., and was graduated by Bristol's Virginia High School in 1980. He is a 1986 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. Prior to college he was a factory worker at Burlington Industries in Bristol, TN. During more than twenty years in print journalism he has worked as a local, national and foreign correspondent for, among others, The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, The Honolulu Advertiser, Gannett News Service/USA Today and The Baltimore Sun.First Book
His first nonfiction book, The Gospel of Father Joe: Revolutions & Revelations in the Slums of Bangkok (Wiley 2008), is the story of Redemptorist Catholic priest Rev. Joseph H. Maier, a native of Washington state in the United States who lives and works in the port-side slums of Bangkok, Thailand. For more than three decades "Father Joe" and his nonprofit Human Development Foundation and Mercy Centre have helped relieve Bangkok's grinding poverty by constructing and managing more than thirty slum preschools, four orphanages and two AIDS hospices, often without church sanction or legal permits. The Nautilus Book Awards honored The Gospel of Father Joe with a silver medal in 2009 in the category of Conscious Media-Journalism-Investigative Reporting.Foreign Reporting
As a roving national and international correspondent based in the Washington, D.C. bureau for GNS/USA Today he was dispatched to Thailand in 2000 to report on the social and economic conditions that had precipitated U.N. protocols intended to combat sex trafficking. It was there that he discovered the humanitarian work of the Mercy Centre and Rev. Joe Maier. Barrett has also reported from Egypt, Jordan,Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.Kamehameha Schools and Bishop Estate Investigation
In 1997 Barrett was the Native Hawaiian Affairs reporter for the morning newspaper in Honolulu, Hawaii, when he began investigating the controversial management of Kamehameha Schools, a private co-educational college-preparatory school founded in 1887 by Bernice Pauahi BishopBernice Pauahi Bishop
Bernice Pauahi Bishop , born Bernice Pauahi Pākī, was a Hawaiian princess, philanthropist, alii, and direct descendant of the royal House of Kamehameha. She was the great-granddaughter of King Kamehameha I and last surviving heir...
, a Hawaiian princess, philanthropist and the great-granddaughter of King Kamehameha I. The Hawaiians-only school, formally known as Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate or KSBE, was managed by the five trustees of Bishop Estate, Hawaii's largest private landowner. Barrett's reports on the micromanaging of Kamehameha Schools unleashed critics of Bishop Estate, which led to an investigation of the estate by Hawaii's State Attorney General. By 1998 the trustees, each of whom were being paid between $800,000 to $900,000 annually, had voluntarily resigned or been permanently removed by the state. That same year the faculty organization at Kamehameha Schools nominated Barrett for a Pulitzer Prize for reports that helped "to break open the secretive affairs of KSBE (Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate) with unprecedented charges by alumni and faculty of mismanagement of the Kamehameha Schools." Barrett's investigation of KSBE is credited in various books for helping to bring about change at Kamehameha Schools and Bishop Estate.