George Anthan

Who is George Anthan?

George Anthan is the former Washington Bureau Chief for the Des Moines Register. He is the winner of several awards for outstanding journalism, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Raymond Clapper and National Press Club awards. Anthan also won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 2004 to research and write about the depopulation of the northern Great Plains. He is a member of the Gridiron Club. He spent his early career reporting in Valley Junction and Des Moines, IA, for the Des Moines Tribune. In 1971, he joined the Register's prestigious Washington, D.C. bureau. There he covered agriculture, food safety, and farm policy issues for 30 years.

Anthan, a Kansas native, is a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism.

An avid bicyclist, Anthan rode his bike between his home in suburban Maryland and his office in the National Press Building for 30 years, logging over 100,000 miles in all. A close friend, Donald Kaul, lured Anthan back to Iowa each year beginning in 1974 to ride his bicycle across the state in RAGBRAI, now the world's largest bicycle ride, which Kaul and John Karras started in 1973.