Good meal, good program
and Vicente Fox, too
in a serendipitous moment that screamed photo op, the former president of Mexico
was observed eating dinner outside the room at Joe T. Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant where SPJ’s September meeting, on ethnic news coverage in Tarrant County, had just
concluded. Next thing Vicente Fox knew, he was having his picture taken. Do an
SPJ meeting, and you never know who you’ll see.
clockwise from far left: Britney Tabor, Cindy Dao, Susy Solis and Eddie Griffin, Michael Vega
Rebecca Aguilar, Kim Pewitt-Jones, Amber Tafoya, Cindy Dao and Patricia
Castillo, from left, with Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico. Just another night at Joe T.
Garcia’s. “It was an ‘aha’ moment,” Aguilar recounts. “I ran back to get Kim, and she couldn't believe it. He was having dinner with
friends in the patio area. I don't think anyone at the surrounding tables knew
who he was. Yep, I went up to him and introduced myself, and then I got
everyone else over. We all chatted, and that's when I said, ‘Mr. President, can we take photos with you?’ He smiled and said, ‘Claro que si! (of course).’ Click! Click! Someone shouted, ‘Put it on Facebook!’ and President Fox just smiled. What a nice guy. I told Kim, if this was George
W. Bush, there’s no way we could have gotten so close.”
John Philbin, president and CEO of Crisis 1 near Washington, D.C., found himself
surrounded, in a pleasant fashion, at PRSA’s annual Ethics Month luncheon Sept. 14. Philbin spoke on “PR Fallout from Ethical Breaches.”
all fom left, above back row: Paige Shlemmer; Julie O'Neil; Brooke Young; Amiso George, APR, Fellow PRSA; John
Philbin; Sana Syed; front row: Tori Bernatz; Doug Newsom, APR, Fellow PRSA; Lauren Souers; Claire Bloxom;
Shannon Listorti; below: Margaret Ritsch, APR; Carol Murray, APR; Lauren-Ashton Shepheard and Allie
Payne; Rene Smith-Murphy; Joan Hunter
PRSA local update V: Members present unanimously approved the chapter’s 2012 slate of officers at the annual meeting Sept. 14: president, Allyson Cross; president-elect, Chris Smith; VP programs, Richie Escovedo; treasurer, Jahnae Stout; treasurer-elect, Liz Heck; secretary, Lisa Starnes, APR; director, Joe Stout; and assembly delegate, Holly Ellman. Joan Hunter (director), Margaret Ritsch (director), APR, and Andra Bennett House (assembly delegate), APR, have a year remaining in their term.
PRSA local update VI: Standing reminders. Have something to say? Be a speaker at a North Texas PRSSA
chapter meeting. E- Kevin Williams at kw757@yahoo.com. ... The DFW Communicators Job Bank lists full-time, part-time and internship positions in PR, media affairs,
advertising/sales, event planning, graphic design, marketing, and corporate and
employee communications throughout North Texas. Employers who are members of
the participating organizations may post a job listing for $50; the cost for
nonmembers is $75. Nonprofits get a 50 percent discount. Each posting runs
three weeks. Greater Fort Worth PRSA receives a portion of the proceeds when a
member marks his or her membership status on the submission form. More from
Jerrod Resweber at jresweber@webershandwick.com or 469-375-0216. ... Stay on top of emerging trends and industry news, extend
your network while increasing your knowledge, and keep learning and stay
competitive. Any practitioner with at least two years in the field is eligible
for membership in the world’s leading organization for PR professionals. Those with fewer than two years
experience or who recently graduated from college and were active in PRSSA may
join as an associate member. More from chapter president-elect Allyson Cross at cross@gcgadvertising.com.
Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas update: Ten years after 9-11, too many questions remain unanswered, and not because we
don’t know the answers but because many of them — 575 cubic feet of documents — are still withheld from the American people. The former chairman of the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States said publicly
that he was eager for most of the records to be released. That was seven years
ago, yet the vast majority of records remain off-limits. It was a lack of transparency, or the failure to exchange intelligence data
between agencies, that was largely blamed for failing to prevent this tragedy
in the first place. The federal government created one of its largest
bureaucracies, the Department of Homeland Security, to make sure it didn’t happen again. Now FOIFT wonders if alleged security threats are being used as
a catch-all excuse to keep taxpayers in the dark. ... A law approved in the
last legislative session gives municipal pension fund managers what appears to
be more power than any other governmental agencies in the state in deciding
what is public information. In other words, the Texas attorney general has been
pushed aside despite concerns about the financial health of many of these
funds. In the first legal test, according to the Star-Telegram, a state
district judge in Austin ruled that the City of Fort Worth Employees’ Retirement Fund has sole discretion to determine what information it will
release to the public regarding those drawing a public pension. Put this one in
the category of, “What were they thinking?”
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