During its recent virtual meeting in March, the NSPRA Executive Board decided that a future NSPRA National Seminar will take place in Seattle, likely in 2023 or 2024. The Seminar was last held in Seattle in 1995. Read more from NSPRA NW Regional Vice President Curtis Campbell:
Greetings WSPRA friends!
If there were ever a time when our school PR family in the Northwest needed a little bit of good news, this is that time. I know that these past few weeks have been incredibly difficult on all of us, and there are certainly more challenges to come. But let’s set that aside for a brief moment and focus on something positive that we have all been working toward for many years.
The NSPRA Seminar is coming back to the Northwest! The NSPRA Board voted unanimously on Saturday to bring the NSPRA Seminar back to Seattle for the first time since 1995. It was officially announced in NSPRA This Week. NSPRA staff are now working with hotels to secure a date for 2023, but if availability isn’t favorable it may be 2024.
There are way too many people to thank individually, but I want to give shoutouts to a few special people who have played pivotal roles in this grassroots journey. We would not be here if not for the hard work and leadership of David Beil, Tove Tupper, Jessica Morgan, Melissa Laramie and Catherine Carbone Rogers.
The idea to bring the Seminar back to Seattle was developed in a Baltimore pub as David and I sought refuge from a torrential downpour during the 2014 Seminar. We came back, put a proposal together and were subsequently shot down and disheartened. The following year, Tove developed a plan and designed buttons to help rally support from NSPRA members across the country at that and subsequent years’ Seminars. We made a lot of noise, created some awkwardness and had a blast doing it! This past summer, Catherine caught a discrepancy in a financial analysis that allowed us to get a more favorable look. Melissa and Jessica then capitalized on that by organizing a WSPRA Board vote at the Seminar in Washington, D.C., that offered support and concessions to NSPRA in an effort to secure Seattle as a host site.
There have been so many other hands that have helped shape our path to achieving this goal on behalf of WSPRA, OSPRA, IDSPRA and school PR pros from across the entire Northwest region. Thank you to each of you for supporting this movement!
I can’t wait for us all to help welcome our friends from across North America to the beautiful Pacific Northwest in just a few short years!
With deep appreciation,
Curtis Campbell
Northwest Regional Vice President
National School Public Relations Association
@CurtisfromWA
curtis.campbell@shorelineschools.org
206.393.4412
