Csu Wins Top National Pr Honor

PR News honored Colorado State University’s Office of Public Relations for having one of the best, most innovative media campaigns in the past year.

Colorado State, along with two other nonprofits, won the 2007 PR Nonprofit Award for Media Relations Campaigns at a ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., last week. CSU won the award for its yearlong campaign to garner increased coverage of university news in the Denver media – part of a broader effort to better connect the university to the metro area.

Other winners in the category were international public relations firms Edelman for its Bionic Woman campaign and Weber Shandwick for its National Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign on behalf of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

PR News honored organizations in more than 20 categories for outstanding nonprofit public relations efforts in the past year.

"Colorado State is a leading national research university that provides substantial educational, economic and quality of life benefits to all areas of the state," said Brad Bohlander, executive director of public relations. "It is a testament to the quality of CSU’s faculty, staff and students that the university continually receives strong media coverage for its mission of education, research and outreach."

The CSU public relations team also includes Jennifer Dimas, who serves as media manager, Dell Rae Moellenberg, Nik Olsen, Kimberly Sorensen and Emily Wilmsen. Michele McKinney, a recent addition to CSU’s Public Relations Office, will continue to enhance communication and outreach efforts in the metro area as the university’s new Denver director of public relations.

CSU’s public relations team earned several other major awards this year, including the following recent designations:

-Two national APEX awards – one for News Writing for "Recent Forest Insect Outbreaks and Fire Risk in Colorado Forests" and one for Marketing and Public Relations Campaigns for "CloudSat in the Media." APEX awards – distributed by the professional public relations and marketing group, Communications Concepts – are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence.

-One PRSA Colorado Silver Pick Award for Writing on "CSU breakthrough: How chronic wasting disease spreads." The 2007 Gold and Silver Pick Awards, sponsored by the Colorado chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, are awarded to well-executed PR campaigns and components executed by Colorado professionals during the past year on behalf of their companies and clients.

-30-