From dental emergency to winning cover photo

Joe Routon of Haddonfield has branched out from "Personal Journey" writer to cover star of Budget Travel magazine's June issue.

You may remember Routon's "Personal Journey"account last year of getting root-canal work in Poland - for $27 (the work was completed in South Jersey for $1,000).

Now, Routon's photograph of Manarola, a town of the Cinque Terre in Italy, is the cover of the Budget Travel that hits newsstands Tuesday. Editors and readers picked the photo out of 3,000 submissions for the reader-generated, 10th-anniversary issue.

When Routon isn't traveling and taking pictures - or going to the dentist - he paints portraits professionally.

- Bill Reed