Region 3 Director Regina Medina Reporter Philadelphia Daily News 400 N. Broad St. Philadelphia, PA 19147 E-Mail: medinar@phillynews.com

Regina Medina, yes it rhymes, was born in Flushing, Queens, the youngest child of Enrique and Mary Medina, two adventurous Venezuelan immigrants who decided, quite capriciously, to pull a "Green Acres" move to suburban Long Island. Jericho, that is. Exit 41S off the L.I.E.

In their neck of the woods, Medina and family were pioneers, a quirky "Royal Tannenbaums" of Espanol indoors and Ingles afuera. She graduated Jericho Senior High and earned her bachelor’s in Latin American Studies from Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., where she was president of GRITO, the student group that eventually opted for a "less confrontational" name. She also produced and directed a video documentary on midwives and another on the university's volunteer medic service.

After a brief diversion into TV sales, Medina moved back “home” to Venezuela, where she taught English to Venezuelans by lip-synching to Madonna and following the school's by-the-numbers curriculum.

One night, in the days before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, she bumped into a former Brandeis classmate, who was reporting for the country’s only English-language paper The Daily Journal, and he told her about an opening. A few weeks later, Medina was on board. She covered Miraflores, the Venezuelan equivalent of the West Wing, and was yelled at twice during news conferences by then-President Carlos Andres Perez for inquiring about the "desaparecidos" of the 1989 riots. But nothing prepared her for the first of Hugo Chavez's coups on Feb. 4, 1992, and the chaos that followed.

Later that year, she returned to the United States. Medina was accepted into Knight Ridder's Minority Training Program and spent one year at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the following at the Akron Beacon Journal. She became a member of NAHJ in 1994 and has served several times as editor for the student newspaper project.

She then landed in Rochester, New York, just a few short miles away from the North Pole, at the Democrat and Chronicle and became quite fond of nor’easters. Eventually, the Philadelphia Daily News came a-knocking with an offer she couldn't refuse.

A hard-news reporter, her heart is in pop culture and features writing. And she looks forward to channeling her enthusiasm into action that benefits NAHJ and Region 3.