ETSPJ 2011-12 Board
President: Amanda Womac
Amanda Womac is executive director of the Blount County-based Hearing and Speech Foundation and former editor and publisher of the Hellbender Press, a nonprofit environmental newspaper. She teaches public speaking at Lincoln Memorial University, where she has taught news writing also. She is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and a 2011 graduate of Leadership Blount. Womac holds a master's degree in science journalism from the University of Tennessee, where she won a number of research and writing awards. She freelances for UT's research publication, Quest. She is passionate about environmental causes and remains involved with Sequatchie Valley Institute at Moonshadow, where she once lived. She co-chairs the Front Page Follies committee.
President-Elect: Kristi L. Nelson
Kristi Nelson has worked for newspapers in the East Tennessee region for more than 20 years, primarily covering health, but also working as a general-assignment news and features reporter. A Knox County native, Nelson received a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. She has received fellowships from the University of Southern California-Annenburg, Kaiser Family Foundation and National Institutes of Health, and awards from Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors, Association of Health-Care Journalists, Tennessee Press Association, E.W. Scripps Co. and Society of Professional Journalists, among others. She is a past winner of ETSPJ's Golden Press Card Award. She enjoys reading fiction and nonfiction, listening to and playing music, visiting museums and monuments, collecting vintage items, and tatting.
She chairs the membership committee.
Secretary: Megan Venable Smith
Megan Venable Smith is executive assistant to the chancellor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She was previously executive director of the Hearing and Speech Foundation in Maryville, Tenn., where she served in numerous administrative capacities including media relations. Under her leadership, the foundation initiated its signature fundraiser, a tradition which continues annually. Smith received a bachelor of science degree in broadcasting from UT in 1996 and a master's degree in communication studies from UT in 2007, while she was working as assistant to the director of development for the College of Communication and Information. She writes a blog, My Mega Exciting Life. Smith is a past president of the Knoxville Nativity Pageant and former volunteer at the Humane Society of Sarasota County, Fla. She is a runner and enjoys sewing and other creative outlets. She chairs the Golden Press committee and co-chairs the Front Page Follies committee.
Treasurer: Jean Ash
Jean Ash spent 17 years as an anchor and reporter for WIVK and was named the AP Broadcasters Association Broadcaster of the Year and Knoxville YWCA Woman of the Year in 1987. After leaving WIVK/WNOX, she worked in Beijing for China Central TV and China Radio International. Ash holds a bachelor of arts degree in history, with a minor in social studies education, from Gettysburg (Pa.) College and did post-graduate studies in communications and Chinese language at the University of Tennessee. She has visited China more than 50 times and led tours of the country, some with an international travel company, others on her own. Her website, http://cupofcathay.com, features her recent and upcoming tours. Ash enjoys photography, reading, studying Chinese history and culture, and cooking (particularly regional Chinese cuisines).
Immediate Past-President: Elenora Easterly Edwards
Elenora Easterly Edwards has been managing editor of the Tennessee Press, the Tennessee Press Association's publication, for more than 20 years. Edwards' parents, Guy and Lucile Easterly, owned The LaFollette Press, so she grew up in the newspaper business. After graduating from Maryville College with an English degree, she studied at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, working for the Missouri Press Association and the Freedom of Information Center. She worked for the Clinton Courier-News for 24 years, including 10 as news editor.
Board members:
Natalie Alund
A Pittsburgh (Pa.) native, Natalie came to the Knoxville News Sentinel in November 2010 as a hard-news reporter. She previously covered police and courts in southwest Florida. Natalie graduated from Milligan College in 2001 with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism. She has won state and regional awards during the past nine years for public safety reporting and investigative reporting. She's also made appearances on local and national TV shows, including CNN's "In Session," and been interviewed on Pittsburgh radio talk shows. She chairs the Communications committee.
Don Dare
"6 On Your Side" investigative reporter Don Dare has been with WATE-TV since 1996. A Pennsylvania native, he holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and a bachelor of arts degree in speech and theater from North Carolina Wesleyan College.
Prior to coming to Knoxville, Dare worked for TV stations in Miami and Nashville, as well as for the Los Angeles-based nationally syndicated program NEWSCOPE. During the 1970s, Dare was broadcast officer for the TV division of the U.S. Army in Augusta, Ga., and worked for the American Forces Vietnam Network in Saigon in South Vietnam.
He enjoys hiking, running 5K road races and sports. He teaches a Sunday school class, sings in the choir at his church and volunteers locally with the Boy Scouts of America.
Dare has received numerous awards for his work, including the national Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting from Radio-Television News Directors Association, seven regional Murrow Awards, an Emmy, National Press Club Consumer Award, Casey Medal for Children's Issues, San Francisco State Investigative Reporting Award, National Headliner Awards, Dalton Pen Award, SPJ Green Eyeshade Award, Missouri Broadcaster Association awards for Investigative Reporting, many ETSPJ Golden Press Card awards (including the top prize), and many awards from the Associated Press, which twice named him Tennessee AP Reporter of the Year. He is a past recipient of ETSPJ's Horace V. Wells Community Service Award.
Mark Harmon
Mark Harmon has worked as a television news producer and reporter, radio news reporter, host of a radio talk show, and guest columnist for several newspapers and magazines. An associate professor in the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee, Harmon has written more than two dozen academic research articles, more than 50 refereed research presentations, three book chapters and two instructional websites, and he just published his first book. In 2004, Harmon was the International Radio and Television Society's Frank Stanton fellow for distinguished broadcast education. He has received awards for outstanding research and teaching at UT, along with a chancellor’s citation for extraordinary community service. Harmon is a former Knox County Commissioner and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for Congress in the 13th district of Texas in 1998. He has served as a county party chairman and a campaign manager. He chairs the Professional Development committee.
Hillary Lake
Hillary Lake is a multimedia journalist for WBIR-TV. Lake claims both San Diego, Calif., and Klamath Falls, Ore., as hometowns. She holds a bachelor's degree from Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, where she studied television broadcasting and human communication (negotiation-conflict management, family communication, gender and communication, etc.). She holds master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Lake began her career as a a researcher on the Leeza Gibbons' former talk-show, "Leeza." Immediately prior to coming to WBIR, she worked as reporter, producer and fill-in anchor at an NBC affiliate in Medford, Ore., covering local news in a viewing area that spanned most of southern Oregon and into northern California.
Lake enjoys outdoor activities and is a voracious reader and an avid still photographer.
Matt Lakin
Matt Lakin joined the News Sentinel as a reporter in the summer of 2006 and covers police, courts, military affairs and drug abuse/addiction issues, along with general assignments as needed. A Knox County native, he is a 1993 Gibbs High School graduate and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1998. Prior to working for the Sentinel, Lakin covered similar beats over three years at the Bristol Herald Courier; before that, he was a general assignment reporter for a daily newspaper in Whitley County, Ga. (near Dalton). Lakin won the ETSPJ 2010 Golden Press Card/Best in Show for a series about methamphetamine use and costs in East Tennessee. Over the years, his writing has been recognized by ETSPJ, Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editor and Virginia Coalition for Open Government, among other organizations.
Georgiana Vines
Georgiana Vines is retired associate editor of the News Sentinel, for which she still writes a weekly political column and occasional freelance stories. Her career at the News Sentinel began in 1968, and she has lived in Knoxville since then, except for 1996-97, when she was editor of the now-defunct El Paso Herald-Post in Texas. She is a former SPJ national president and teaches at the University of Tennessee's School of Journalism and Electronic Media. Georgiana oversees the Front Page Follies Auction subcommittee.