SPJ COLORADO PRO CHAPTER MAY-2012 NEWSLETTER

Fresh off the success of the Region 9 conference held in Denver in April, your SPJ Colorado Pro chapter board has been hard at work making sure our finances stay secure and well-invested, the board is well represented and we’re keeping up with our reporting requirements to SPJ national.

• First off, we’re proud to announce our 2012 scholarship recipients: Lauren Archuletta, CU-Boulder, 2012 Helen Verba scholar Ye Ming, CSU-Pueblo, 2012 Helen Verba scholar; Christie Sounart, CU-Boulder, 2012 Helen Verba scholar; Brittany M. Moore, CU-Boulder, 2012 Sheldon Peterson scholar. Each was awarded $1,800 to help offset college tuition costs. Members: thanks for your support all year – helping young journalists is one of the most important things we do.

• At our May meeting, the board approved an investment policy to guide our continued financial stability. Many thanks to Treasurer Christine McManus VonGunden, President Cara DeGette and all the help and guidance we got from David Milstead.

• Board members appointed Gil Asakawa to fill a vacant board seat. He will stand for election this summer as our diversity chair. Asakawa is a Denver media veteran who began his career in1980 as a reporter and music editor for the alt-weekly Westword, and also served as entertainment editor for the Colorado Springs Gazette. In 1996 he took his first online position running AOL’s Digital City Denver, an early “hyperlocal” effort, and he’s never looked back. He has managed The Denver Post’s website, and worked at the management level for MediaNews Group, Examiner.com and Advance Newspapers. He is currently Manager of Student Media for the University of Colorado.

• President DeGette has filed out annual report to national, outlining all the educational and fun programs we had this year. The report shows we complied with all requirements to remain a chapter in good standing.

• We’d like to welcome the Mesa University Chapter of SPJ, which the national board approved in April. Many thanks to Membership Chairman Ed Otte for his continued outreach efforts and visit to the Western Slope newsrooms and campus.

That’s it for this month. As always, please email us programming suggestions or if you have interest in serving on the board – elections are coming this summer.