Tom Loftus was a longtime Frankfort bureau chief and investigative reporter for The Courier-Journal. He was a prolific user of open-records laws to reveal foibles and felonies in state government, campaign finance and intersections thereof. His series on suspicious contributions in 1991 race for governor led to indictments and convictions, and overhaul of state campaign-finance laws. He developed and maintained extensive database on contributions to Kentucky politicians; he co-authored a series revealing extent and cost of blacktopping monopolies. He led coverage on scene of the Carrollton bus crash in 1988 and worked on the aftermath, helping C-J staff win the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. He is a native of Cincinnati and journalism graduate of The Ohio State University. He was a reporter for The Kentucky Post, from 1976 to 1984, ending in Frankfort; he was the C-J Indianapolis bureau chief from 1984 to 1986. He is the winner of the James Madison Award from the University of Kentucky’s Scripps Howard First Amendment Center in 2008.