A local journalist is being honored for telling the story of a Marine veteran who last year drew lifelike portraits of the Parkland shooting victims — to give the artwork to their families.
James LaPorta’s article, “The Marine Vet Who Draws Presidents, Fallen Heroes — and Parkland’s Kids,” was published last year by the Daily Beast, a news website. LaPorta was recently given an award by the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit that sets out to preserve and promote the Marine Corps’ history.
LaPorta wrote about Michael Reagan, an artist whose pencil artwork looks real. Reagan has drawn thousands of portraits of fallen U.S. service members, celebrities, the children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School who were murdered. Reagan also prepared 17 portraits to give as gifts to the families whose loved ones died in the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High.
“I was so happy to win for this article, not for myself, but to show the good that can come of tragedy, that there are still people trying to do good,” said LaPorta, of Delray Beach, now a staffer at Newsweek covering the Department of Defense.
LaPorta said it’s “important to remind ourselves there are good people doing good things out there every single day.”
For LaPorta it was personal. He first saw Reagan’s artwork at a memorial service at Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina after he returned from Afghanistan. At the time, 13 of LaPorta’s fellow Marines had been killed in combat and four days later another would die from his injuries.
lhuriash@sunsentinel.com, 954-572-2008 or Twitter @LisaHuriash