By Betsy Model, President
To all my fellow SPJ Rio Grande Members:
There’s no other way to start this email…y’all rock.
While all of us who comprise the little still-not-quite-a-year-old Rio Grande Chapter of SPJ know that we’re special – hey, we’re smart enough to have either grown up in New Mexico and West Texas or were smart enough to move here – now the rest of the nation’s journalists will know it too…
There have always been a couple of little goofy things that have made this chapter unique without our really trying too hard:
We were a defunct chapter for more than two decades – we’ve single-handedly redefined the word “siesta” – and, with the skill and leadership of Region 9 director John Ensslin, started back up again from ground zero last October.
We’re second only to an Alaskan chapter for geographic size and we’re one of the only “we don’t need no stinkin’ borders!” chapters in the country that officially includes members from two states. In fact, in part because of the strength of our website content and the outreach by our VP of Communications, David Brown, we not only know that journalists from around the country routinely check out our chapter site for job and fellowship opportunities, we’ve begun having journalists who reside in states other than New Mexico and Texas (including Colorado and California) tell national “hey, we want to belong to that chapter.”
Time to break out the champagne!
Last month, and due in no small part to the efforts of our VP of Development Gwyneth Doland, it was confirmed that we were the fastest growing chapter in the country. Now, considering there are almost three hundred chapters in the country and we’re the new kids on the block, that makes all of us the coolest, hippest, most career savvy kids on the block to have recognized that not only has there never been a better time to join up with 10,000 other pro journalists in the country to keep our industry strong and vital but you’ve got 69 “peeps” down the street, a few hours away or on your Listserv to keep you absolutely at the top of your game in terms of knowing what’s going down in our territory and on your beat.
At the National Convention in a few weeks, it will be officially announced that the Rio Grande Chapter has just won the national….Top Small Professional Chapter Award. Okay, so it’s an awkward-sounding title and the “small” reference sounds a little goofy (it refers to chapters under 75 members…) but it’s a truly outstanding honor for a chapter this young to be recognized for being this incredibly…spunky.
And quirky.
And resilient.
And, at the national convention and in front of thousands of attendees, we’ll get a plaque that says so.
To all of the board members who help steer our chapter – David Brown, Gwyneth Doland, Rivkela Brodsky, Julia Ann Grimm, Staci Matlock, Peter St. Cyr, Dennis Roberts, Rick Romancito, Dan Mayfield, Bill Diven and Dan Vukelich – my sincere thanks for all of your hard work and for the remarkably off-the-wall ideas and concepts you bring to the table so that this chapter can do what it does best…excel and raise (journalistic) hell.
Most important? To all of our chapter members who make this chapter shine so stupidly bright that the rest of the country has to wear sunglasses when they look to the southwest, once again…y’all rock. Truly.