Erin Hayes

— -- Erin Hayes is a correspondent for ABC News based in the network's Southern Bureau in Atlanta. A 25-year veteran of broadcast news, Hayes has won numerous national awards for her reporting.

Hayes covers a wide range of stories and is often among the lead correspondents sent to cover breaking news in her region. Her most recent assignments include reporting on the nation's reactions during the War in Iraq, covering the search for clues and debris following the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, and investigating the continuing concerns about the nation's preparedness for terrorism.

Hayes was also one a primary contributor to ABC News' 9/11 coverage — providing daily reports on the nation's reaction to the tragedy.

She has also, in the past decade, reported from the scene of countless hurricanes, blizzards and floods — including the historic 1993 flooding of the Mississippi River, when she spent that summer following the flood as it pushed down the Mississippi.

Among her earlier assignments for ABC News was her work covering the street gangs of Chicago, for which she won the Sigma Delta Chi award. That same year, she was ABC's lead correspondent covering the Oklahoma City Bombing.

In 2000, she was sent to Tallahassee, Fla., for a one-day assignment: covering the presidential election. It stretched into a monthlong stint during which she provided day-to-day coverage of the election for ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

In addition to her spot news coverage, Hayes also contributes investigative and feature reports for ABCNEWS — work seen on ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Good Morning America and Nightline and heard on ABCNEWS Radio.

Hayes' broadcasting career began in 1976 at the College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo. There she earned a bachelor's degree in English and worked at the College's public radio station. She was also certified as a high school English teacher and earned a pilot's license.

From 1979 to 1981, she was a reporter/anchor for KTHS Radio in Berryville, Ark.. From 1981 to 1986, she was a reporter at KYTV in Springfield, Mo., where her work was awarded the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton.

Her work as an investigative reporter at WSMV-TV in Nashville earned her a second Silver Baton from the duPont-Columbia judges.

She is a three-time recipient of the prestigious Edward R. Murrow award and a winner of both the national Sigma Delta Chi Award for Investigative Reporting and the National Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. She has also received three DuPont Columbia awards — and was most recently recognized for her work during ABCNEWS' 9/11 coverage.

In 1988, Hayes joined the staff of WDAF-TV in Kansas City as an investigative reporter. From 1989 to 1993, she was a correspondent for CBS News in that network's Southern Bureau. In 1993, she joined ABCNEWS as a correspondent in the network's Midwest Bureau in Chicago. In 1998, Hayes moved to ABC's Southern Bureau.