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Renée Alexander
Renée Alexander hails from North Carolina, where there are more pigs than people. Perhaps that explains her unapologetic addiction to pork, which culminates in an annual Pork of July potluck. After completing graduate school in the South, she drove West to Bend, Oregon, where she served as managing editor of the Source Weekly newspaper and ran one of the first online press release distribution services before launching grassrootsPR in 2002. She brought the business to San Francisco in 2009, where she continues to scout and share stories for non-profits and small businesses. When she isn't scouting stories for clients, she enjoys adventure travel that takes her off the beaten path. She drove a tuk-tuk across India in the Rickshaw Run, chased a solar eclipse through the Australian outback, crossed a remote Guatemala/Honduras border in the back of a pick-up truck, and contracted dengue fever on her honeymoon. Her life's goal is to get cheerleaders added to baseball. In addition to KQED's Bay Area Bites, her work appears in 7x7, Saveur, Wired, and The Atlantic. Follow Renée on Twitter @grassrootspr