Instead of a crew of 20 regulars, a serious presidential candidate today can expect to fly with three whole planes of reporters.

And so it was that Robert Skinner Boyd made a rather large leap in 1993. The veteran political reporter stepped down as Knight Ridder's Washington Bureau Chief to become its Washington science writer.

At the age of 71, he found himself spending weeks in Antarctica "talking to scientists and building igloos."

But Boyd still carries out the same job he always did, using his gift with words to tell complicated stories with ease and simplicity. Fifty years after his last class in a Harvard hall, his lessons in language are still with him.

"Harvard was a great place to go and study," Boyd says, and his academic interest in language still lives on.

"Just the other day, I picked up a Hittite grammar," Boyd says.

But in the end, Boyd's gift with words found a much more practical outlet. Harvard may have taught Boyd about languages, but as a reporter, Boyd spent a career showing exactly how words are to be used, and what they are to be used for.