Eleven APC members took honors in the National Federation of Press Women 2010 Communication Contest, after earning first-place awards at the state level in their respective categories. Winners include:

•Debbie Cutler, 1st, News reporting, publication/ magazine/ supplement

•Yereth Rosen, 1st, Enterprise reporting; 1st, Special articles-science; Hon. Mention, Continuing coverage or unfolding news

•Elise Patkotak, 2nd, Personal columns, general

•Amy Murphy, 1st, Internal annual report; Hon. Mention, Photography in pub. other than newspaper, sports photo

•Rhonda McBride, 1st, Prepared report, television; 2nd, Special programming, television

•Sheila Balistreri, 1st, Best newscast, television; 1st, Best presentation, television

•Morgan Grey, 1st, Brochure, four-color

•Noe Texeira, 2nd, Direct mail marketing

•Brenna Clairr O’Tierney, Hon. Mention, Feature writing, collegiate

•Sharon Bushell and Stan Jones, 2nd, Non-fiction book, history

•Stan Jones, 2nd, Fiction, novel

Author Charles Wohlforth will kick off the APC fall luncheon line-up on Thursday, September 2 with a presentation on his new book, The Fate of Nature: Rediscovering Our Ability to Rescue the Earth. His book will be available for purchase.

Luncheon Information
11:30 a.m., Thursday, September 2
Kinley’s Restaurant and Bar
3230 Seward Hwy.
Anchorage

Lunch: members $19; others $25

Reservations:
1. RSVP and payment through PayPal.

2. Email: akpc at gci dot net by noon Tuesday, August 31.

3. Call 274-4723 and leave a message, including a phone number where you can be reached. When calling or sending an email, please include how many people are coming and their names.

More about Charles Wohlforth

Charles Wohlforth is a life-long Alaska resident and prize-winning author of numerous books about Alaska. His work includes writing about science and the environment, politics and history, travel, and as-told-to biography. A popular lecturer, he has spoken all over the United States and overseas. Wohlforth lives with his wife, Barbara, and their four children. They reside in Anchorage during the winter, where they are avid cross-country skiers, and in summer on a remote Kachemak Bay shore reachable only by boat.

Wohlforth, 48, graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1986 before returning to Alaska to work six years as a newspaper reporter, including covering the Exxon Valdez oil spill for the Anchorage Daily News. He became a full-time freelance writer in 1993, publishing articles in The New Republic, Outside, Discover and other periodicals,and writing three travel books published by Wiley. He also served two 3-year terms on the Anchorage Assembly.

In 2004, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published Wohlforth’s widely acclaimed non-fiction account of climate change in the Arctic as experienced by the Eskimos and the scientists studying it, titled The Whale and the Supercomputer. The book won The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology, among numerous other national and regional citations for science, culture, and journalism.

Join us on June 3, when nationally award-winning Anchorage Daily News columnist Julia O’Malley will speak about the writing process. Bring your pen and paper!

Luncheon Information
11:30 a.m., Thursday, June 3
Kinley’s Restaurant and Bar
3230 Seward Hwy.
Anchorage

Lunch: members $19; guests of members $22; others $25

Reservations:
1. RSVP and payment through PayPal.

2. Email: akpc at gci dot net by noon Tuesday, June 1.

3. Call 274-4723 and leave a message, including a phone number where you can be reached. When calling or sending an email, please include how many people are coming and their names.

About Julia O’Malley

Julia O’Malley writes a general interest column about life and politics in Anchorage and around Alaska. She grew up in Anchorage and has worked at the ADN on and off as a columnist and reporter since 1996. She came back full time as a reporter in 2005.

As a reporter, she covered the court system and wrote extensively about life in Anchorage, including big changes in the city’s ethnic and minority communities.

In 2008, she won the Scripps-Howard Foundation’s Ernie Pyle award for the best human-interest writing in America. She has also written for the Oregonian, the Juneau Empire and the Anchorage Press.

Congratulations to the 23 winners in the 2010 APC Communications Contest. First-place winners will go on to compete at the national level in the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest.

Sheila Balistreri, Sharon Bushell, Bruce Bustamante, Dan Carpenter , Debbie Cutler, Molly Dischner, Morgan Grey, Therese Harvey, MaryLee Hayes, Stan Jones, Karla Kolash, Allyson McBride, Rhonda McBride, Amy Murphy, Anita Nelson, Dianne O’Connell, Brenna Clairr O’Tierney, Elise Patkotak, Sarah Richards, Yereth Rosen, Kathleen Tarr, Noe Texeira, Phil Walczak.

Special recognition goes to Amy Murphy, who wins our Sweepstakes award, with the most winning entries.

1C News reporting, publication/magazine/supplement, general or specialized circulation
1st: Debbie Cutler, Ice road truckers: the “reality” behind the Haul Road, Alaska Business Monthly
2nd: Amy Murphy, AVEC’s wind program, Ruralite magazine
Hon. Mention: Amy Murphy, Issues raised at the annual meeting, Ruralite magazine

2 Continuing coverage or unfolding news
1st: Yereth Rosen, Palin leaves office, Christian Science Monitor

4 Enterprise reporting
1st: Yereth Rosen, Alaska climate change, Reuters

7C Feature story, publication for general or specialized circulation
1st: Amy Murphy, Extreme winter working conditions, Ruralite magazine
2nd: Kathleen Tarr, Cultural legacy: exploring Alaska’s Russian influences, Alaska Airlines magazine
3rd: MaryLee Hayes, The wild Valdez adventure, Alaska Women Speak
Hon. Mention: Debbie Cutler, Cruise ship magic, Alaska Business Monthly

9E Special articles, education
Hon. Mention: Molly Dischner and Sarah Richards, Students blindsided by loan change and Students struggle to achieve good credit, the Sun Star (UAF student newspaper)

9F Special articles, science
1st: Yereth Rosen, A grand quest to rid an island of rats and When Mt. Redoubt erupts, these scientists are on the job, Christian Science Monitor

9Q Special articles, travel
1st: Debbie Cutler, Magnificent Glacier Bay and Glacier Bay Lodge and tours, Alaska Business Monthly
2nd: Amy Murphy, Kala Patthar—Nepal and Arctic to Bird ski trip, Scree

10B Personal columns, general
1st: Elise Patkotak, Racial attack came from bottom up and Boys’ sex abuse a private horror, Anchorage Daily News
2nd: Elise Patkotak, Dog’s value is what it teaches kids about democracy and To help break cycle of abuse, try removing judgment, Anchorage Daily News

16C Page layout, publication for general or specialized circulation
2nd: Amy Murphy, Spring floods cause damage and Hooper Bay’s wind turbine project, Ruralite magazine

20B Photography in printed publication other than newspaper, feature photo
Hon. Mention: Amy Murphy, Kala Patthar and Mount Pumari as viewed from Gorak Shep (Himalayas—near Everest), The Scree

20C Photography in printed publication other than newspaper, sports photo
1st: Amy Murphy, Looking back toward Temptation Peak during backcountry ski trip, The Scree
Hon. Mention: Amy Murphy, Ray and John transferring skis across “bridge” at creek crossing, The Scree

22 Photographer-writer
2nd: Amy Murphy, Chevak’s new power generation facilities, Ruralite magazine

24B Prepared report, television
1st: Rhonda McBride and Phil Walczak, Walter Hickel: 90 years of vision, KTUU-TV Channel 2

25B Special programming, television
1st: Rhonda McBride and Dan Carpenter, Sarah Palin’s wild ride, KTUUTV Channel 2

30B Best newscast, television
1st: Sheila Balistreri, The Morning Edition, KTUU-TV Ch. 2

31B Best presentation, television
1st: Sheila Balistreri, The Morning Edition, KTUU-TV Ch. 2

42 Community or institutional relations
1st: Anita Nelson, Bruce Bustamante and Allyson McBride, At home in
Alaska, Princess Tours

47B Annual report, internal
1st: Amy Murphy, Alaska Village Electric Cooperative Annual Report 2008, Alaska Village Electric Co-op
2nd: Morgan Grey, Apprenticeship technologies, University of Alaska Anchorage

50A Newsletter, one– to three-color
1st: Elise Patkotak and Noe Texeira, The Flight Feather, February 2009, Bird Treatment and Learning Center
2nd: Elise Patkotak and Noe Texeira, The Flight Feather, August 2009, Bird Treatment and Learning Center

51B Brochure, four-color
1st: Morgan Grey, Alaska statehood quilt, Alaska Statehood Celebration
2nd: Dianne O’Connell, Growing the promise/cultivating the legacy: village partnerships, Presbytery of Yukon, Presbytery of Yukon

53 Direct mail marketing
1st: Noe Texeira and Karla Kolash, North Slope Borough calendar, North Slope Borough

60A Feature writing, collegiate: newspaper, magazine or special supplement
1st: Brenna Clairr O’Tierney, More than just beds and a roof over their heads, The Protest, Northwestern University
Hon. Mention: Brenna Clairr O’Tierney, Student members of Take Back NYU take over, The Protest, Northwestern University
Hon. Mention: Brenna Clairr O’Tierney, The other Olympics struggle, The Protest, Northwestern University

72B Non-fiction book, essay in book
2nd: Therese Harvey, From anthropomorphism to zoomorphism, Tidal Echoes, UAS Literary Arts Journal 2009

72D Non-fiction book, history
1st: Stan Jones and Sharon Bushell, The spill: Personal stories from the Exxon Valdez disaster, Epicenter Press Inc.

72H Non-fiction book, religious or inspirational
2nd: Morgan Grey, Bedtime stories for a dying friend

73 Fiction, novel
1st: Stan Jones, Village of the ghost bears, Soho Press

JUDGES

SAM KINCH
Categories 1-10 (print journalistic writing)
Sam Kinch Jr. was a prizewinning reporter on Texas politics and government for 37 years and founding editor of Texas Weekly, a leading political newspaper. He was educated at The University of Texas, where he was editor of the student newspaper, The Daily Texan. He began covering the Texas legislature in 1961, then moved to Washington to cover Texas members of Congress for two Dallas newspapers. In 1970 he returned to Austin, where he was state political editor for the Dallas Morning News until 1984. He then founded Texas Weekly, which he sold when he retired in 1998. He has written three books on Texas politics. He is married, with three grown children and six grandchildren.

VICKI RISHLING and REBECCA J. “BECKY” TALLENT
University of Idaho

Categories 11-17 (editing and layout), and non-fiction books
Vicki Rishling, a longtime newspaper editor and reporter, holds a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio State University, where she was a Kiplinger fellow in 2002. She is a senior lecturer for journalism classes at the University of Idaho’s School of Journalism and Mass Media in Moscow, Idaho. Rebecca J. “Becky” Tallent, an award-winning journalist and public relations specialist, is an assistant professor of journalism and mass media at the University of Idaho. Becky has been active in the Society of ProfessionalJournalists (SPJ) since 1972. She is also active in the Native American Journalists Association. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Central Oklahoma and a Doctor of Education in Mass Communications from Oklahoma State University.

HEATHER ANNE THOMAS
Categories 18-22 (photography)
Heather Anne Thomas’ father gave her a camera at age five and she’s never put it down. She studied painting and art history at the University of Texas and honed her technical skills assisting some of the best photographers in Houston and New York City. Her editorial work has appeared in Food Arts, Traditional Home, Wine Spectator, Garden & Gun, and Forbes Life, and her commercial clients include some of the most prestigious names in kitchen and home design and equipment. Heather Anne resides in Tennessee with her husband Dan, daughter Iris Mae, and dog Galen.

JOHN FOSHOLT
Categories 23-31 (radio and television)
John Fosholt retired as a photographer and writer with KUSA television, the NBC affiliate in Denver. He worked in Denver television news for 32 years as an editor, producer, and investigative journalist. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Colorado State University and a master’s in Mass Communication from the University of Denver, where he has taughttelevision news for about 30 years. He is also vice-president of the Colorado Freedom of Information Council.

RUTH ANNA
Categories 36-41 (Advertising, print and electronic); 42-57
(Public relations, promotion, publicity); and 58 (Speeches)
Ruth Anna founded Anna Public Relations Consultants in the Denver area in 1977. She has more than 30 years of diversified experience in both the private and public arenas. Her clients include professional associations, scientific firms, human service and nonprofit agencies, businesses, government agencies, and political candidates. Her services include speech and report writing and editing, media relations, crisis management, workshops and seminars, publications, campaign management, fundraising, and event management. She’s a past president of the National Federation of Press Women and Colorado Press Women, and has served on the Colorado Freedom of Information Council since 1987.

ROBERT HELLENGA
Fiction and poetry
Robert Hellenga, author, teaches English literature at Knox College in Galesburg, IL. He started writing fiction in 1973 and published his first novel (after 39 rejections) in 1994. The Italian Lover is his latest. The others are Philosophy Made Simple, The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, and Snakewoman of Little Egypt (forthcoming). He was educated at the University of Michigan and Princeton University. He has three daughters, “like King Lear,” he says, “but unlike the Lears, we all get along.”

In 1981, our organization decided to help Alaskans pursue their education in the communications field. This year we are awarding two $1,000 scholarships in memory of Betzi Woodman, Kay Kennedy, Phyllis Carlson, Jimmy Bedford, Chris McClain, Jo Ann Wold, Natalie Gottstein, Elizabeth Plank, Mae Martin, Pat Oakes, Suzan Nightingale, Ruth Kilcher Marriott, John Killoran, Loretta Schooley, Nancy Cain Schmitt and others. Their spirits live on in our scholarship winners.

Winners of the 2010 scholarships:

Alicia Jo Johnson, editor of the student newspaper at Kodiak College. There was no student newspaper there when Johnson started as a freshman. She found supportive faculty members, recruited a team of enthusiastic writers, and developed Kodiak College’s first student-generated newspaper, The Emerald Looking Glass, which she edits. The college director, Barbara Bolson, wrote about Alicia’s “significant impact on Kodiak College, the student body and the larger community.”

Felix Rivera, a junior at Alaska Pacific University and a noteworthy student leader who, as his professor Mei Mei Evans said at the award luncheon, “Has really been on a roll, and became student body president.” He has been accepted for several programs including an internship at the Institute on Political Journalism in Washington, D.C.