Historian’s Report 2023

New Mexico Press Women

Robert Flinkman, Historian

March 10th-11th, 2023

New Mexico Press Women officers for the year 2022-2023 are : President Sherri Burr;

Vice-President Leonie Rosenstiel; Secretary Lynne Hinton and Treasurer Loretta Hall

The Board of Directors are : Broadsheet Editor Leonie Rosenstiel; Communications Contest Chair Carolyn Carlson; Zia Book Award Chair Patricia Hodapp; Communicator of Achievement

Chair Adam Biederwolf; Scholarship Chair Brandon Larranaga; HIgh School Contest Coordinator Margaret Cheasebro; Social Media Chair Ludella Awad; Facebook Editor Ludella Awad; Public Relations Chair Leonie Rosenstiel; Historian Robert Flinkman; Website Editor

Pamela Ofori-Boateng; Albuquerque Press Women Steering Committee Karen Wentworth

Chapter Presidents are : Las Cruces Tamaria Fetzer; Albuquerque Karen Wentworth; Northern

New Mexico Patricia Hodapp

Member at Large Colleen Keane

For the Communications Contest Sweepstakes award for 2022 the winners are :

1st Place : Diane Joy Schmidt

2nd Place (tie) : Colleen Keane

3rd Place (tie) : Arin McKenna

For the Organization Sweepstakes award for 2022 the winners are :

1st Place : KUNM programming

2nd Place : Tumbleweeds Magazine

3rd Place : New Mexico Source

The Doris Gregory Scholarship Award for 2022 winners are :

Pamela Ofori-Boateng, a student at UNM

Brandon Larranaga, a student at NMSU

For Giving Tuesday in November, $1,000.00 was raised thus far for scholarship donations. Thank you to NMPW and friends for their support.

The 2022 NMPW Conference was held on March 10-12, 2022 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Farmington, NM. The theme for the Conference was, Listening to Native American Voices : Past and Present. We were honored to have as Guest Speaker Miss Navajo Nation, 2021-2022, Miss Niagra Rockbridge. Ms.Rockbridge spoke about the challenges and achievements she has experienced as Miss Navajo Nation, as well as her own experience in the nominating process to be selected as Miss Navajo Nation. As Miss Navajo Nation, she represents, establishes and maintains relationships between various nations and advocates for the Navajo people. She is a positive role model for young people everywhere through teaching and kinship, to strengthen family ties, pride, culture and traditions of the Navajo people.

In addition with the theme of Covering News and Stories in Tribal Communities : History,Tips and Resources, we invited the following speakers : Vivian Arviso, Arviso Educational Services,

Tom Arviso, Publisher, Navajo Times, Cindy Yurth, former reporter, Navajo Times and Noel Lynn, reporter Daily TImes. They spoke about their experiences as Native American reporters and the challenges they faced, the stories they covered, and advice for current Native American reporters.

The participants during the conference enjoyed a wide range of activities. Participants could take a tour of the Salmon Ruins, listen to a lecture given by Alex Benally at his store, Alex Benally’s Hogan, as he discussed traditional Navajo medicine and healing. There was a walking tour of downtown Farmington and an Animas RIver Walk as well as a tour of the Aztec Ruins. Participants were entertained with a series of musical performances and a buffet at the renovated Connie Gotsch Theater at the San Juan Community College.

The 2022 NMPW’s Communicator of Achievement winner was Margaret Cheasebro. Margaret has been a journalist, newspaper editor, freelance writer and elementary school counselor. She has won many state and national awards for her writing. As a journalist, she has won awards from the New Mexico Press Association, NMPW, New Mexico Medical Society and NFPW. She has been a correspondent for the Albuq.Journal, 4 Corners Business Journal, reporter and bureau chief for the Daily Times of Farmington, NM and managing editor of the Aztec Independent Review. Margaret has been a member of NMPW since 2007.

The 2022 Zia Book Award winner was Lynne Hinton for The Beekeeper’s Wife.

First Runner-up : Kathleen Rodgers for The Flying Cutterbucks

Second Runner-up  : MIcki R.Petit for A Kiss for Maggie Moore

Concerning the 2022 High School Contest, the winners were from the Albuquerque School of Excellence.

Student Sama Lilo : Honorable Mention for a News/Feature Photo

Student Sydney Noranyi : Second Place for a cartoon and Honorable Mention for an Editorial

and the school’s newspaper, the Phoenix Times : First Place for Best Newscast

Concerning membership for 2022, the New Mexico Press Women has 99 members who have paid their dues for 2022.

At the Santa Fe Literary Festival held on May 20-23 at the Sweeny Center, Sherri Burr participated, interviewing opening night Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Underground Railroad. Other featured authors included Margaret Attwood, John Grisham, Jon Krakauer and George R.R. Martin.

In early December, Jonathan P. Wright, history curatorial assistant from the Albuquerque Museum, e-mailed the NMPW President, Sherri Burr, informing her of a future exhibit at the Museum involving the history of local journalism from the 1940s-1970s. The exhibit opening would be in August 2023. Jonathan inquired about any archives the NMPW would have to share : physical objects, photos, publications, newspaper articles particularly during the 1970s.

Sherri Burr recommended meeting with Jonathan Wright at the Albuq.Museum, inviting as well Denise Tessier, who co-wrote History of the New Mexico Press Women and the current Historian, Robert Flinkman. During the meeting, Jonathan shared with them examples for items that would be shown in the exhibit. Jonathan felt that the 1970s was a time of political and social change, the advancement of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and how journalism handled the issues of that time. It was felt that this exhibit would be a great opportunity to share with the public the history of the NMPW, and a timely exhibit as well considering the challenges journalism is facing today.

Denise Tessier and Robert Flinkman would then later meet at the Center for Southwestern Research on the UNM campus, to examine and select any relevant archives that could be used for the exhibit.

In January, 2023, Denise and Robert met twice at the CSWR. They went through a number of files and

scrapbooks from the 1950s – 1970s, examining newspaper articles, photos, publications and conference

materials. They selected a variety of items which Denise took photos of and sent them to Jonathan at the Albuq.Museum to consider.

Denise and Robert wanted to select items highlighting the achievements and recognition that members of NMPW have received. Examples are a b/w photo of Val Cooper, the first woman city editor in NM and first woman member of the Assoc.Press, meeting with Walter Cronkite. Also NMPW newsletters from 1978-1979    including a poll about salaries and working conditions for women in journalism as well as the results of that poll. Also pictures of Frankie McCarty, one of a handful of women, who held the position of managing editor at the Albuq.Journal in the 1970s. We also included NMPW state conference brochures that give a sense of journalism at that time, as so many papers were active in NM in the 1960s and 1970s.

In February, Denise very generously offered a list of items to donate or lend to the museum from her own journalistic collection. To lend were such items as one copy of the the Assoc.Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, a reporter’s notebook with actual interview notes, and a reporter’s Rolodex.

To donate : a 6” proportional scale (sizing wheel) used to calculate sizes of graphics and photos in doing

page layout (pre computer days), a copy of a single “Design Page” guide with column grid in pic widths, and an actual mock-up of an Editorial Page on two pages.

Jonathan from the Albuq.Museum has contacted us with his choices, which to lend which to donate. We will be arranging  date and time to meet to go over those items and to decide which items to show in the exhibit this August.