Leonora LaPeter Anton is a staff writer on the Tampa Bay Times' enterprise team. Her stories veer toward the unusual: A surrogate mother who can't get pregnant. A broke couple who rent rooms in their mansion. A boy who says his girlfriend raped him.

She has also followed a mother on prescription drugs trying to get her kids back, accompanied a piece of the World Trade Center on its journey from New York to Florida, and hung out with homeless families living in motels.

Leonora grew up in Westport, Conn. and Greece and graduated from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She has written for the Okeechobee News in Okeechobee, Fl., the Island Packet on Hilton Head Island, S.C., the Tallahassee Democrat in Tallahasse, Fl. and the Savannah Morning News in Savannah, Ga.

She joined the Times in 2000, covering St. Petersburg City Hall. In 2001, she became a general assignment reporter on the Metro desk. In 2000, she won the American Society of Newspaper Editors award for deadline reporting.

Phone: 727-893-8640

E-mail: lapeter@tampabay.com