Taking Care of Business

Westword staff writer Alan Prendergast has been awarded the Morton Margolin Prize for Distinguished Business Reporting from the University of Denver. Prendergast was honored for his February 22, 1996, story "Out for Blood," which described Boulder biotech firm Somatogen's efforts to tap into the $5 billion international blood-transfusion market.

Named for a Rocky Mountain News business writer who died in 1978, the Margolin award honors outstanding reporting about Colorado business issues. Prendergast will receive a cash prize and a commemorative plaque at a January luncheon sponsored by DU's Daniels College of Business.

Prendergast has written for Westword since 1984. His work has also appeared in a number of national and regional publications, including Rolling Stone, USA Today, Us, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. He has won several awards for his writing on criminal-justice issues for Westword and has taught courses in journalism at the University of Colorado and Metropolitan State College of Denver.

Prendergast graduated summa cum laude from the Colorado College with a B.A. in English literature and received his M.A. in journalism from Ohio State University. He is the author of the true-crime book, The Poison Tree, about the shotgun slaying of a Wyoming IRS agent by his sixteen-year-old son following years of child abuse, which was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.