Peter Applebome has been a reporter and editor for The New York Times since 1987. He was born in New York City and grew up in Great Neck. He graduated from Duke University in 1971 and received a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1974. After working at Texas newspapers in Corpus Christi and Dallas and at Texas Monthly magazine, he joined the New York Times as a national correspondent and then bureau chief in Houston. He moved to Atlanta as Southern Bureau chief in 1989, served in that job for five years. Since then he has covered education and culture and is now Deputy Metropolitan Editor.

His work has appeared in numerous publications including the New Republic, the Washington Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, the Nation and the Texas Observer. His interests

include Duke University basketball, tennis, alternative country music, and the novels of Thomas Pynchon. His favorite achievement was winning the annual Bad Hemingway competition with an epic about Hemingway in the singles bars of Dallas. He is also the winner of the annual Scoutmaster Challenge at Camp Waubeeka of the Boy Scouts of America, about the least likely honor he ever expected to receive in his life.

He is the author of two books. In 1996 he wrote "Dixie Rising: How the South is Shaping American Values, Politics and Culture.'' His new book, "Scout's Honor: A Father's Unlikely Foray into the Woods," published by Harcourt, comes out in May. He lives in Chappaqua with his wife, Mary Catherine Bounds, and two children, Ben, 16, and Emma 12. Despite three years of inept Scouting activity, he still can't tie his knots.