For some reason, when someone runs for president of the U.S., people all of a sudden want to know everything about that person. And if there's an aspect of that person they are unfamiliar with, then they want to know about that too.
The candidacy of Mitt Romney is a case in point. His most distinguishing characteristic, other than being very, very rich, is his religion. There hasn't been this much interest in a candidate's religion since John F. Kennedy secured the Democratic nomination in 1960. (Well, there was all that flap in 2008 about President Obama being a Muslim, though in fact he wasn't.) Romney, of course, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as Mormons.
There are a lot of misconceptions about the Mormon religion, but mostly people know very little about it. Our cover story this week, "Mormon Road Trip!," seeks to educate those of us who are ignorant about the faith, at least in a general way. And the author, Seth Jovaag, found an interesting connection between Madison and Mormons, which you can learn upon reading the story.
Jovaag is a graduate of Luther College, which I am pretty sure is unaffiliated with the Latter-day Saints, and has also studied at Nottingham University in the U.K. and Concordia University in Mequon. He's a certified Wisconsin teacher, but his day job is as a reporter for Woodward Communications. He has 10 years of experience in journalism and, in his own words, "more than 2,000 bylined stories that have appeared in a variety of daily and weekly newspapers, trade magazines and online publications." He has five first-place awards from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association's "Better Newspaper" contest among his recognitions.
Previously for Isthmus, Jovaag has written about the new remote-reading utility meters and Tom Barrett's possible transition plans (didn't happen). We appreciate his diligence in pursuing this story to the wilds of Illinois.
