October 21, 2009 – Someone You Should Know

Mike DiBiasio ’10

Photo courtesy of Mike DiBiasio ’10

OWU Legacy Student Mike DiBiasio
Writing, story-telling, and performing dominate his many interests

At first glance, Mike DiBiasio ’10 seems to be the poster child for Ohio Wesleyan University.

He’s the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, a member of Chi Phi fraternity, and an active participant in the bluegrass club and the theatre department. He also comes from a long line of accomplished OWU alumni: father Dan DiBiasio ’71 and uncles Tony ’74 and Bob DiBiasio ’77. His cousin James DiBiasio ’12, son of Tony, is also a member of the OWU community.

But behind his family legacy and campus involvement is simply a light-hearted senior enjoying his last year at OWU, and slightly frightened by the prospect of graduation.

“I’ll have to go make something of myself,” he frets.

DiBiasio is following in his Uncle Bob’s footsteps as a journalism major. However, he also is adding history and theatre minors.

“During a typical day, I get to the Transcript office around 8 a.m., do some work, go to class, go back to the office, maybe have a theatre rehearsal, do more work, and then go back to the office,” DiBiasio says.

Growing up in Dover, New Hampshire, and Wilmington, Ohio (dad, Dan, is Wilmington College’s President), DiBiasio says he wanted to be a color commentator for Major League Baseball. But now he says his dream job would be working as a freelance contributor to National Geographic and as a part-time playwright and nonfiction writer.

Not only has DiBiasio had journalistic experience as editor-in-chief of the Transcript, but he also has spent the past two summers working for Seven Days, an alternative weekly newspaper in Burlington, Vermont.

“When I wasn’t hiking in the Greens, I wrote stories for Seven Days, worked on the paper’s Web site, reported on the Web site’s blog, made videos, and worked on putting out the newspaper’s first and second editions of What’s Good, a college guide to Burlington and surrounding areas,” he says.

DiBiasio not only enjoyed working for the newspaper, but he also loved the area in which he worked. “I would have to say my favorite place to travel is Vermont. I’ve been going there all my life to visit family. It’s peaceful, serene, and pleasantly progressive.”

A budding guitar player and folk music fan, DiBiasio says he would love to have met singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie. “Guthrie’s music was a unique form of journalism in itself. He traveled the country over and fully experienced the plight of Americans during the Great Depression,” DiBiasio says. “Those individual and collective struggles filtered through his music and served as a window into peoples’ trials and triumphs at that time. He was telling stories. That is exactly what journalism is.”

Asked what his greatest accomplishment has been thus far in his life, DiBiasio laughs and says, “Growing my beard.” Sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer out of this constant jokester.

“No, but in reality I feel like I’ve learned a lot working on the Transcript and the two summers I’ve spent working for a newspaper in Vermont. With each story I learn something new about the word and improve my writing. That’s an accomplishment enough,” he says.

A little bit extra:

• If you could have any super power, what would it be? – The ability to pause, rewind, or fast-forward in life
• How do you like your eggs? – Served at Hamburger Inn
• Who is your dream date? – Joan Baez—even if she is 60 something
• Coffee or tea? – Coffee. Black.
• What is your all time favorite movie? – O Brother, Where Art Thou?

– Emily Hastings ’10