Colorado Press Women
exPRESSions
Newsletter of Colorado Press Women
March 2006
FYI — A message from the President
By Judi Buehrer
Colorado Press Women is gearing up for another great year of professional development, networking, mentoring and educational outreach, climaxing with a superb Rendezvous in the Rockies NFPW National Conference Sept. 7-9, which we're hosting at the Adams Mark Hotel in Denver.
My thanks to Teresa Ford, Ann Subart, Brenda Goates, Erin Hottenstein, Sandy Graham, Sandy Nance, Marilyn Saltzman, May Anderson, Lee Anne Peck and Ann Lockhart for spreading the word about CPW and the National Conference at the Colorado Press Association's Annual Convention Feb. 24-26. In addition to providing CPW brochures and flyers about the conference that we're hosting next fall, these members raised awareness of CPW and networked with several potential members and conference sponsors.
Twelve members attended the Feb.3 CPW board meeting in Loveland, and I thank them for their great ideas, hard work, commitment and stamina - it was a two-hour meeting! But we accomplished a lot. Here's the scoop.
- CPW-WMP border bunch
Amy Bennett, a new arrival in Longmont and former president of our sister affiliate, Wyoming Media Professionals, has volunteered to form a subchapter of northeastern Colorado CPW members and southern Wyoming WMP members. Responding to Amy's request for input about the group's organization, the board advised her to keep it simple, schedule 8-10 meetings a year that would primarily serve as networking opportunities, advertise meetings to all CPW members, and urge involvement in CPW activities. Clearly, we'd love to see a group emerge that would augment our organization while meeting the needs of members who are unable to attend CPW meetings in the Denver Metro area. Amy hopes to organize a meeting soon, probably to be held at the Fort Collins Coloradoan. If you'd like to be involved in this group, please email me, jlbuehrer@earthlink.net, and I'll forward it to Amy. - College student recruitment
Chelsey Baker-Hauck, CPW Vice President/Membership, hopes to organize CPW subchapters at Front Range universities. If you're interested in helping with this or would like to know more, please contact Chelsey at cbaker@du.edu. - Upcoming meetings
The program committee, headed by President-Elect/Program Chair Gay Porter DeNileon, has begun planning the Spring Conference to be held May 6 in the Boulder area. Gay welcomes new members' involvement in this committee, so contact her at gporter@awwa.org if you'd like to help plan our programs. - Scholarship search underway
Chair Kathleen Duff has mailed our College Communications Scholarship information to several Front Range colleges. Submissions deadline is April 1. The scholarship award will be presented at the May 6 conference. - Communications Contest update
Chair Joyce Davis has received five book entries and 50 entries in the other categories. Contest winners will be notified by April 20, and awards will be presented at the May 6 conference. First-place entries will be forwarded to NFPW to compete in the national contest. National awards will be presented at the awards banquet at the Adams Mark Hotel on Saturday, Sept. 9. - High School Journalism Contest
Chair Mary Parmelee has sent out information and entry forms for the CPW High School Journalism Contest. Deadline for submissions was March 2. State awards will be presented at the May 6 conference. First-place winners will compete in the NFPW High School Journalism Contest. That awards luncheon is set for Saturday, Sept. 9, at the Adams Mark. - President's term
The board extended my term for one year at the request of President-elect Gay Porter DeNileon, who felt she would be more prepared to take on the presidency in May 2007. - Website revisions, updates CPW Webmaster Ellen Glover is in the process of having our Web site redesigned and updated. We also will be switching to a new Web hosting service. If you can recommend a hosting service or have other suggestions about our site, coloradopresswomen.org, contact Ellen at gloverellen@hotmail.net or 303-972-1048.
- NFPW revising contest rules Send your recommendations for changes in the NFPW Communications Contest rules by March 15 to Donna Hunt, dhunlimited@texoma.net or 31 Via Esplanade, Denison, TX 75021. Our state contest rules conform to the NFPW rules.
- Rendezvous in the Rockies update
Speakers: Jeannette Walls, T.R. Reid, Tad Bartimus, Patty Limerick and Heloise have accepted invitations to be keynoters at the NFPW National Conference.Walls will address the High School Journalism Luncheon on Sept.9. She is an MSNBC.com reporter whose memoir, The Glass Castle, was a New York Times bestseller and is being made into a movie by Paramount.
Reid, who will keynote the Friday morning breakfast on Sept. 8, is a longtime correspondent for the Washington Post and former chief of its Tokyo and London bureaus as well as a commentator for National Public Radio. His books include The United States of Europe, The Chip and Confucius Lives Next Door.
Bartimus, a columnist for United Feature Syndicate, contributed her story to the book, WAR TORN: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam. She also wrote the text for Requiem, a collaborative effort with David Halberstam, Horst Faas and Tim Page that won Overseas Press Club and George Polk awards in 1998. And she's been in a band with Stephen King, Amy Tan and Matt Groening!
Limerick, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, received the coveted MacArthur Fellowship in 1995. Limerick's book, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, had a pronounced impact on how historians look at the American West. Limerick is a co-founder and chair of the Center of the American West.
Heloise, a long-time Press Women member from San Antonio, writes the syndicated column created by her mother, the original Heloise. She will keynote the Friday night Communicator of Achievement Banquet, Sept. 8.
Workshops: Two days of outstanding workshops in three tracks - journalism, public relations and freelance/authors - are scheduled Friday and Saturday, Sept. 8 and 9. Workshops will include mystery writing with Margaret Coel and John Dunning and an ethics panel with T.R. Reid and Fred Brown, former Denver Post reporter and Society of Professional Journalists president. Other topics include the First Amendment, book publishing, women in sports reporting, building your own public relations firm, special events planning, covering manmade and natural disasters, women in journalism management, corporate/international public relations, travel writing and freelance writing.
Tours, receptions and more: Three days of preconference tours are planned Sept. 4-6. Two receptions are being organized, as well as some other fun special events Sept. 7, 8 and 9.
Sponsorships: CPW is fortunate to have received several conference sponsorships, with more requests pending. Member Lee Anne Peck's mother Connie Ghent and her aunt, Ginnie Gleason, are sponsoring Jeannette Walls in honor of their mother, Helen Benedict, a former women's editor at the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal. The Denver Newspaper Agency is sponsoring the conference tote bags and will provide daily newspapers at the conference. Janus Funds also has signed on, with specific use of the funds to be determined. And Frontier Airlines is providing complimentary round trip tickets for our out-of-town keynoters.
Member news
Nina Bondarook moved back to Colorado from Seattle 2 1/2 years ago, but now she has returned to Washington's lower altitude. She reports that living at 7,000 feet on Cheyenne Mountain was taxing her husband's heart. She is doing some work for Microsoft.
"We miss the snow, hiking up in Summit County and all the Colorado sunshine," Nina wrote. "And all of the good friends we left behind a second time. But life is still good and must go on. And there are many other places we could have landed that would have been less desirable."
Page Lambert's River Writing Journeys for Women were featured in the January 2006 issue of Oprah's O Magazine as "One of the top six great all-girl getaways of the year!!" In addition to her regular trips, the Aspen Writers Foundation has asked Lambert to host two "workshops on the river" in conjunction with their June 2006 "Voices of the West" Aspen Summer Words Festival. For more information, go to www.pagelambert.com or www.aspenwriters.org/summer
Anne Subart's position at MetLife Resources Sis being moved to New Jersey May 1, but she is staying in Colorado. She requests that e-mails now be sent to her home account, asubart@comcast.net
Marilyn Saltzman also has a new email address: msaltzman@evcohs.com
Former longtime CPW member Margaret McKinney and her family welcomed Marlys Duran 
for a nice, but brief, visit on Oct. 6 at their historic home in Las Vegas, NM. Margaret is doing public information work for the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, including producing a quarterly newsletter for foster parents.
Margaret says he loves living in Las Vegas but misses her former Press Women colleagues in Colorado.
Margaret, husband Roy Diefendorf and daughters Morgan (left) and Caitlin posed for Marlys before she departed for Albuquerque and then on to a week in the Texas hill country.
New members
Several media women have recently joined CPW for 2006. They are:
Christine Cole, assistant managing editor for University of Denver Magazine
Teresa Ford, self-employed editor, writer and desktop publisher
Brenda Gillen, periodicals editor for the University of Denver Office of Communications and Marketing
Brenda Goates, student intern in the University of Denver Office of Communications and Marketing
Sarah Hensel and Laura High, senior editors at the American Water Works Association
Christiana Nelson and Sara Reed, reporters at the Fort Collins Coloradoan
Stacey Sepp, co-founder and COO of Xstatic Public Relations, a Denver-based communications firm that works with a diverse client list in a variety of industries, from nonprofit organizations to an international call center company to a Web site start up.
Amy Bennett, a former president of Wyoming Media Professionals, moved to Colorado where she is sales and office manager for The Old Berthoud Recorder and The Old Lyons Recorder.
Their contact information is in the CPW directory emailed to members recently. A directory of 2006 members also is available in the Members Only section of the NFPW Web site, www.nfpw.org
Web site: www.ColoradoPressWomen.org
E-mail: coloradopresswomen@earthlink.net
President Judi Buehrer: jlbuehrer@earthlink.net
Editor Marlys Duran: marduran@earthlink.net