Keith Peterson served 30 years with the United States Information Agency and the Department of State as a press and cultural officer. He served twice in Cyprus, in 1989-90 as the Assistant Public Affairs Officer and in 2011-14 as Public Affairs Officer. In both postings he served on the Board of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission, first as the alternate to Board Chairman Lane Cubstead and, in 2011-14, as Chairman of the Board.
Prior to joining the Foreign Service in 1986, he was a print journalist with the Mankato (Minnesota) Free Press and the Daily and Sunday Herald based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. In his last three years with the Herald he was its chief editorial writer. Since his retirement from the Foreign Service in 2015, he regularly contributes opinion articles to The Herald on foreign policy and government topics.
He earned B.S. and M.A. degrees in journalism at Northern Illinois University, where he was an editor and columnist for the university’s nationally recognized student newspaper. He did graduate studies in comparative social structures and international politics at the University of Stockholm (Sweden) and earned an M.A. in national security studies at the National Defense University at Ft. McNair in Washington, D.C.
He lives in Lake Barrington, Illinois and Punta Gorda, Florida.
