Quite a night it was June 12 at Rassai Interactive, sponsored by the GFW PRSA Presidents Council and the Masters SIG (left to right, top to bottom): David House and Andra Bennett House; Laura Van Hoosier, Lisa Gail Barnes and Joan Hunter; Bill Lawrence; Margaret Ritsch; Meg Benkel; Meg Benkel and Christy Jones; and Chad Horany, Susan Nix and Judge Graham.
C’mon, now, this one’s easy. If you know where Richie Escovedo, left, and Tom Burke were last month, shoot them an e-mail. In May they were checking out the higher education vibes on the TCU campus. And to carry this “where in the world are they?” theme to an extreme, see where Tom goes when he’s not hanging out with Richie.
Linda Jacobson, Que Public Relations founder and CEO, with her IABC Fort Worth Award of Excellence Bronze Quill.
PRSA local update: The Southern Public Relations Federation and the Public Relations Association of Louisiana thank everyone from the Greater Fort Worth and Dallas PRSA chapters who judged the 2008 Lantern Awards. Those in the FW crowd donating a day of their time (a Saturday, no less) included Allyson Cross, Julie O’Neil, Linda Jacobson, Viqui Litman and Stephanie Mitchell; Mary Dulle, APR, Fellow PRSA, and Blake D. Lewis III, APR, Fellow PRSA; and Sam Lopez, APR; Cathy Mueller, APR; Carol Murray, APR; Andra Bennett House, APR; and Laura Van Hoosier, APR. Appreciation also went to TCU’s Dr. O’Neil for her hospitality. “The facilities at TCU were absolutely wonderful, and she made us feel right at home,” the Louisiana organizers wrote. Of 249 entries, the judges awarded 37 Lanterns, two Judges’ Awards and a Best of Show.

PRSA local update II: A planning meeting for the 2009 Southwest Communicators’ Connexion, the combined TPRA Annual Conference and PRSA Southwest District Conference, will be 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, July 10, at the Embassy Suites Spa and Conference Center in Frisco. The conference will be there Feb. 27-March 1. More from Scott White at 972-490-0903 or scottwhite@bizcompr.com.

PRSA local update III: Learn more about PRSA and network with other PR professionals at the Independent PR Practitioners SIG meeting from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 16. For more information, contact Nancy Farrar with Farrar Public Relations at nancyh829@aol.com or 817-937-1557. Eight days later, the Healthcare SIG will meet at noon at Central Market. Beat the summer heat with free gelato for dessert. RSVP to Kelly Owen at kowen@jpshealth.org.

PRSA local update IV: Last call (this time around). Join PRSA national before July ends and receive a $45 chapter membership for one year. National membership is $225, plus $65 initiation fee. Visit prsa.org/membership; enter CHAP2008 on the application. Contact Andra Bennett, APR, at abennett@fortworthchamber.com or 817-336-2491, ext. 265, for a snail-mail application or with membership questions.

SPJ national update: An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into a school for jihad. More here. ... As the American press corps gets older, wearier — and simultaneously younger and more untested as the veterans leave — there are truths that some of the reporters of Baghdad have learned about the war. Chief among them: If you manage to find a true story, don’t count on anyone back home wanting to hear it. More here.

SPJ national update II: U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled June 16 that a White House office that has records about millions of possibly missing e-mails is not subject to the FOI Act and does not have to make them public. More here. ... Even the taxman is subject to sunshine. Judge Marsha Pechman of the Western District of Washington in Seattle ruled June 13 that the IRS has flouted three court orders dating to 1976, and she ordered the agency to produce unredacted copies of the requested material within 30 days. More here.

SPJ national update III: The Quincy (Ill.) Newspapers NBC affiliate sustained flooding in its Waterloo, Iowa, headquarters around 6:30 a.m. June 11, knocking the station off the air. Quincy tapped half a dozen engineers from stations in neighboring states, and KWWL was back up by 10:55 a.m. The news was shot in the station parking lot, and the noon newscast went on without scripts. More here and here. ... Google-owned YouTube is launching a “Reporter” channel, featuring news-related videos submitted by anyone. A YouTube page already exists for users to submit video-format questions to the presidential candidates. Meanwhile, sites like GroundReport and CNN’s iReport offer an outlet for users’ eyewitness stories, and MySpace has partnered with NBC News and msnbc.com on its “Decision ’08 Convention” contest, which will offer two MySpace users the chance to report from either the Republican or Democratic national convention. More here and here and here.

SPJ national update IV: UTA Shorthorn ex Rogers Cadenhead, a controversial but long-standing figure in the blogging community, and the Associated Press reached an agreement after he received a letter demanding the removal of small excerpts of AP content on his site Drudge.com. More here and here. ... Adding to her comments that Hillary Clinton “received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I’ve ever seen,” Katie Couric filmed a Keith Olbermann-style commentary (called ner “Notebook”) claiming that sexist coverage hurt the New York senator’s chances of becoming the Democratic Party nominee. More here.

SPJ national update V: A Tennessee couple whose soldier son was killed in Iraq want to expand their lawsuit against an Arizona online merchant of anti-war T-shirts to cover more than 4,000 casualties and seek more than $40 billion in damages. Robin and Michael Read’s suit would cover the heirs of all U.S. service members killed in the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001. Dan Frazier’s “Bush lied — They died” T-shirts list Iraq war casualties’ names, and Frazier contends he is covered by the First Amendment. More here. ... The majority of newspaper editors are optimistic about the future, and four out of five believe their staffs will be producing stories across all platforms within five years. Those are among the findings of the second annual Newsroom Barometer survey produced by Zogby for World Editors Forum and Thomson Reuters. More here.

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Former UTA Renegade magazine adviser and now American Airlines Publishing editorial director Adam Pitluk signs a copy of his latest book, “Damned to Eternity: The Story of the Man Who They Said Caused the Flood,” for Tarrant County College student Keisha McDuffie. The book explores the possibility that James Scott was made the scapegoat in the 1993 flooding of West Quincy, Ill. Pitluk spoke at the SPJ meeting June 19 at Joe T. Garcia’s. He also wrote “Standing Eight: The Inspiring Story of Jesus ‘El Matador’ Chavez.”