Eighty-six journalists, journalism educators, true believers and friends
embraced student assistance and a more powerful press April 17 at Cacharel in
Arlington at Fort Worth SPJ’s 6th annual First Amendment Awards and Scholarship Dinner. The chapter awarded
$11,000 in scholarships. A commemorative page is coming featuring pretty much
every one of those 86 people, but first, another bite of that pecan-crusted
chicken.
Copywriter Brian Pierce’s presentation at the April PRSA meeting included a table exercise in ad copy
writing, here with Carol Murray, left, and Stacey Pierce (Brian’s wife).
• The focus was on students at the Fort Worth chapter’s annual Pro-Am Day, where students shadow professionals in the morning, then
they all rally around the buffet. The 2009 TCU PRSSA Bateman Case Study team — from left, Cristin Grimes, Stephanie Chatley, Megan Murphy, Dr. Amiso George,
APR, Samantha Riley and Hannah Mathews
— presented its “Destination: College!” campaign aimed at middle school minority students and their families. • Six members of ACU's PRSSA chapter, all of them ad/PR majors, plus adviser Dave
Hogan drove in from Abilene for the meeting — from left, Preston Watkins, Melanie Langston, Laken Lloyd, Eyrah Quashe, Becky
Easter, Hogan and Will Moore.
The PRSA Pink team — Catherine Mueller, Cindy Vasquez, Andra Bennett House and Linda and Phil
Jacobson, from left, plus David House and Laura and Luke Hanna — raised $578 for cancer research at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on
April 11.
Next month: They threw a party for Doug Newsom, and everybody came!
Modern Mavens, a holding firm for area consulting companies, in April launched two
enterprises, the Metroplex Marketing Edge and Targeted Positioning. MME assists
business owners on emerging technology and non-traditional marketing
techniques. Targeted Positioning provides résumé writing and interview coaching. UTA communicaion graduate and IABC member
Melyssa Prince, far left, and Texas State University PR grad Ashley Baxter
founded Modern Mavens in 2008.
SPJ national update III: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose hometown San Francisco Chronicle is in trouble, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to consider loosening antitrust laws to help struggling newspapers by allowing
more media mergers. Holder says he is open to revisiting the rules. But more
consolidation ”will only weaken reporting and worsen the health of our democracy.” ... Real journalism vs. “professional journalism.”
SPJ national update IV: A citizen journalist lets the sun shine in at Somervell public meetings. ... Warren Buffett: ”For most newspapers in the United states, we would not buy them at any price.” ... London police are preparing for a “summer of rage” as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against
financial institutions, the Guardian reports. Britain’s most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the
spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their
jobs, homes or savings becoming “foot soldiers” in a wave of violent protests. More here.
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PEOPLE & PLACES
SPJ loyalist Derik Moore, Weatherford branch, received nine Gold Star awards at the recent Texas School
Public Relations Association convention. TSPRA members submitted 905 entries
from 110 Texas public schools; the Weatherford ISD competed against school
districts with enrollments of 10,000 or fewer students. Moore is WISD
communications director and also a candidate for the Grandview School Board.
...
Jennifer Covington, Frances Matteck, John Harden and Steve Knight from The Collegian staff at Tarrant County College placed in on-site
competitions, and Matteck and Covington also placed in two-person photo at the
Texas Intercollegiate Press Association convention April 11. The Collegian won
overall excellence in Division 2 and sweepstakes. ...
Westlake Academy student journalists Yasya Vasyutynska, Nick Ford, Brooke Awtry, Anisha Chandra, Erik Herbst, Sarah Titus, Riley Rennhack, Josh Frey, Stefanie Schultz, Emily Perez, Courtney White, Caitlin Burke, Casey Gallagher, Shea Griffin, James Grover, Nigel LaRue, Margaret Ledak, Jordan Lee, Sarah Malik, Luci Pacheco, Emily Titus, Andrew White, Austin Lieber and Kriti Gupta (a sixth-grader who became the youngest Westlake student to win a state prize
in the competition, for a headline she wrote when she was in the fifth grade)
and their Black Cow newspaper won 55 awards, including a lucky 13 first places,
at the state UIL Interscholastic League Press Conference, April 17-19 at UT
Austin. The total surpassed last year’s record of 47 for the four-year-old newspaper. “We are a regular PR machine of wonderment for kids who can’t drive,” e-mails volunteer adviser
Dave Lieber. In a recent issue, one of the young writers pays tribute to the Roanoke
bookstore that hosted the students in an author reading night. Lieber: “The owner of the bookstore writes back a letter to the editor, which is under
the column, and it says, ‘Dear Editor, that story here makes opening this bookstore all worth it.’ Karma, baby!” ...
The Texas Associated Press Managing Editors named The Shorthorn Texas’ best college daily, marking the sixth consecutive year that the UTA paper has
won the award, considered the top Texas honor for print journalism. Also at the
APME convention April 25, Star-Telegram reporters Darren Barbee, Yamil Berard and Anthony Spangler won the Star Investigative Award for an investigation of the finances and
operations of JPS Health System. S-T staffers and former staffers Gaile Robinson, Jack Z. Smith, Constanza Morales, Cynthia Wahl, Ross Hailey, Cathy Frisinger, Sarah Brubaker, Jeremy Cannon, David Casstevens, Jan Jarvis, Cary Darling, Chris Vaughn, Deanna Boyd, Andrea Jares, Maria Perotin, Tom Pennington, Kari Crane, Michael Currie and Steve Wilson also won awards. ...
