After receiving his Bachelor of Science in Journalism from San Jose State University in 2002, Clay Stalter moved to Jacksonville, Illinois to pursue a career in photojournalism. As a staff photographer and then photo editor for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier Stalter fell in love with community journalism. Over the course of seven years at the paper he was recognized statewide and regionally for his work documenting West Central Illinois. He even garnered an Award of Excellence in the 64th Annual Pictures of the Year International.

Stalter left the paper in 2009 in order to attend graduate school at the University of Missouri, School of Journalism. His studies focused on photojournalism, online news presentation, and the business of news media.

While in graduate school he helped launch an online project to document the lives of Missouri's rural youth. As part of his graduate project he conceived and executed missouriscivilwar.com to document the first year of the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War as it pertained to Missouri. This involved recruiting student teams for coverage, working with faculty members to teach video and audio production and editing techniques, while also creating and editing a number of video pieces himself. It was also at the University of Missouri, as a graduate teaching assistant, where Stalter realized the joys of teaching and training the next generation of journalists.

Currently Stalter teaches beginning photography courses as an adjunct instructor at Lincoln Land Community College and University of Illinois, Springfield. He does a little freelance video editing when not teaching. He lives with his wife, Leslie, and daughters, Anika and Ruby, in Springfield, Illinois.

Contact Clay below: