510 S. 31st Street • P.O. Box 8736 • Camp
Hill, PA 17001-8736 • (717) 761-2740 • www.pfb.com
CONTACT: Mark O’Neill, Media Relations Director, (717) 761-2740 or e-mail
For Immediate Release: June 24, 2009
(Denver, CO) – Pennsylvania Farm Bureau (PFB) won five national public relations awards, including the prestigious Dave Lane Award for Media Relations Excellence during the American Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Conference in Denver.
The Dave Lane Award recognizes the state public relations staff that does the best job of building and maintaining working relationships with members of the news media.
PFB was also recognized for the categories of Best Media Relations Event, Best Public Relations Campaign, Best News Story (Writing) and Best Promotional or Education Video.
In the category of Best Media Relations Event, PFB was honored for it work on promoting and executing a news conference that focused on Pennsylvania farmer Keith Eckel, who decided to get out of the tomato business, because he didn’t think he’d have a large enough legal labor force to pick his tomatoes. The story received state, national and international newspaper, radio and television coverage. The Keith Eckel story was also the subject of a feature that earned PFB the Best News Story for Writing. The story appeared in Farm Bureau’s monthly publication Country Focus.
PFB also won in the category for Best Public Relations Campaign for its successful Rural Roads Safety Week campaign. Rural Roads Safety Week informs the public that large farm vehicles will once again return to roadways across Pennsylvania and encourages farmers and rural residents to share the road from the planting through the harvesting season. The safety campaign included driving tips for motorists and farmers.
Finally, PFB’s “Bountiful Harvests on Borrowed Time” won in the category of Best Promotional or Education Video. The half-hour video, which was broadcast nationwide on RFD-TV, took an in-depth look at the farm labor issue and how the lack of a comprehensive immigration reform law has hurt the efforts of farmers who use seasonal farm labor. The video can be viewed from a link on PFB’s website at: www.pfb.com/media-center/agbytes-&-videos/index.htm.
“Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s public relations program is a team effort, integrating the work of our professional staff with effective communications by our leaders and other members,” said PFB’s Governmental Affairs & Communications Division Director Gary Swan. “The challenges facing agriculture require us to always be striving to the next level of achievement.”
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau is the state’s largest farm organization with a volunteer membership of more than 44,000 farm and rural families, representing farms of every size and commodity across Pennsylvania.
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