Dr. Neal Lineback, a native of Winston-Salem, is currently a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University. He has taught at both the high school and college level, most recently serving as a professor of geography at Appalachian since 1986 until retiring recently. He has authored or co-authored three books, along with numerous professional papers. He founded the World Geography Bowl, a national student geography competition.

Lineback has also written an award-winning column for high school classrooms, “Geography in the News,” for eighteen years running. He created the column, now numbering 700+ articles, to help students and other learners better understand the relationship between geography and economics, politics, agriculture, and other current events. "There is a story behind every current event and most times the real story involves geography," Lineback said in an interview for Appalachian. "Geography is the study of patterns and I search for the patterns behind the news and explain it for my readers. Geography is not just learning a bunch of names of places."

The “Geography in the News” columns, including archived articles, are available to teachers, schools, and universities through a subscription on Maps101. Lineback and Maps101 have generously agreed to share the following columns on North Carolina topics.

These files require Adobe Acrobat, available for free at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.

8Related Web Sites
Five Themes of Geography and Current Events (lesson plan)
http://www.col-ed.org/cur/sst/sst168.txt