2017 HALL OF FAME
Thursday, September 14, Juban's Restaurant

MANSHIP NEWS
Breaux

John Breaux, who served 33 years in the U.S. House and Senate, is teaching a class in the Manship School this fall. His class, part of the school's political communication concentration, will focus on how Washington works. Breaux is senior counsel at Squire Patton Boggs, a global law firm based in   Washington.

Check out Breaux's first day of class here.

The Manship School begins its 3+3 Pre-Law program this fall. The program offers an accelerated undergraduate degree and law degree (LSU Law Center) in six years. In order to kick off the program, the Manship School is partnering with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences to host Geaux Pre-Law Week at LSU. The week of  October 30 - November 3 will be packed with helpful events for students interested in law school. To learn more about the Manship Pre-Law program, visit our website at manship.lsu.edu. And look for a finalized calendar of Pre-Law Week events on the Manship website later this month. Geaux Manship! Geaux Pre-Law!

The Manship School offers a "degree that can take you anywhere." You may have seen our new advertising campaign in your social media feeds. Manship graduate students and graduates created the campaign to help boost enrollment and to tout the transferability of a mass communication degree. The campaign features talented and successful alumni doing great things across different industries. So far, three alumni have been featured-- look for five more in the coming months. 

Joshua Grimm became associate dean for research and stratetic initiatives in fall 2017. He will be responsible for professorships, accreditation, growing outside grants and  other duties.

The Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs has many great programs lined up for fall, and we hope you will join us. Upcoming events include "A Conversation with Executive Editor of the New York Times Dean Baquet" and "She Persisted: Women at the Ballot Box and on the Campaign Trail."  See the schedule 

ALUMNI UPDATES
1980s
Rod Dreher  (1989) has written "The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation."

1990s
Matt Malatesta (1993) owns VYPE magazine and is the publisher of  SETX in Houston. He also consults for/appears with the Houston Chronicle, KUBE 57 Game of the Week, KPRC2 and ABC13. He covers high school and college sports throughout Texas. 
 
Michael Tullier (1994) is senior director of communications, public relations and marketing for Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. He previously worked for 16 years at Auburn University in public relations.
 
Paige Bowers (1995) has written a book, "The General's Niece," a biography of Charles de Gaulle's niece, confident and daughter figure.

Pamela Labbe (MMC, 1995) entered the Manship Ph.D. program in 
fall  2017.  Previously she served as an adjunct instructor in the school and worked as communications coordinator for the Baton Rouge Bar Association.

Ginger Guttner (MMC, 1997) received the Practitioner of the Year Award in April, 2017, from the Baton Rouge Chapter of the Public Relations Association of Louisiana. She curre ntly works at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine (public relations coordinator from 2004-2014 and communications manager from 2015-present).

Williams





Terri Broussard Williams   (1999)  was honored by the Girl Scouts of Central Texas as a 2017 Woman of Distinction. She is Affiliate Vice President of Advocacy/Government Relations at the American Heart/American Stroke Association in Austin.
2000-2009
 
J.T. Lane (2001) is assistant secretary for the Department of Health, Office of Public Health.

Jay Dauenhauer (2002) transitioned out of TV news into the energy sector about 10 years ago, but this year he started an energy podcast with special focus on business and the economy. He attributes his compentency in this program to the many hours he spent in Hodges Hall editing on Adobe premiere. 
 
Julie Laperouse (2003) was named a 2017 Influential Woman in Business by the Baton Rouge Center for Visual & Performing Arts.
 
John Gaston of National School Public Relations Association, Taylor Media Services consultant Angela deGravelles, Taylor Media owner Delia Taylor, Jackie Tisdell and Ascension Public Schools Superintendent David Alexander

Jackie Tisdell (2003) led a bond election communications campaign that won a National School of Public Relations Association Gold Medallion Award for Ascension Public Schools. Ascension was one of 11 school districts across the country to win NSPRA's  highest honor and the only recipient in Louisiana this year. Also on the team were Manship alumni Angela deGravelles (1971) and Delia Tayor (1988), consultant and owner of Taylor Media. Jackie has worked as public information officer for Ascension Public Schools since 2015.




Tony Marks , (2004) who has been sports editor of the Oakdale Journal since October 2016, started full time as associate editor of the Ville Platte Gazette.

Jennings




Natalie Jennings (2005) was named editor of The Fix, the Washington 
Post's  signature political blog. Natalie has been at The Post since 2010 where she distinguished herself in political journalism. She spent the past four years in the video department, where she helped shape the video approach to the 2016 campaign. 
 




Liz Wilks Van Dervort (2007) a producer with Gillis, Ellis & Baker Insurance Co. in New Orelans, was named the 2016 Board Member of the Year by the Jefferson Chamber of Commerce.
 
Maria Guerrero (2007) joined NBC5 in Dallas as a general assignment reporter in February.  She is happy to be back in her home state.

Halley Holdsworth (2007) is a client partner with Facebook in New York.
 
Cassie Alsfeld (2009) started her own company, Shoreline Strategies, LLC and specializes in copywriting, email marketing, online fundraising and political consulting.
 
Megan Fambrough (2009) moved to St. Louis where she accepted a position as the marketing support specialist for Silgan Plastics.

2010-2017
 
Reporter Joy Lukachick Smith (2010) and Joan Garrett McClane were finalists for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting for their work on The Poverty Puzzle, an examination of the income inequality in Chattanooga.  

Renée Edelman and Cloud




Bridget Cloud (2010) is an account supervisor at Edelman in New York.
 





Brittany Ernest (2011) is a coordinator for the LSU Foundation Alumni Fund. 
 
Gerdes



Carolyn Gerdes (2012) wrote "An Oral History of the New Orleans Ninth Ward." Previously she blogged for National Geographic as a Young Explorerers Grantee. She is now a D.C. freelancer and blogger. 
 





D'Seante Parks (2012) joined the Louisiana Democratic Pary as director of public affairs. She will manage communications and engagement statewide. Most recently Parks served as political director for Afghanistan veteran Jason Kander's U.S. Senate campaign in Missouri.
 
Matthew Schafer (2013) is counsel at BuzzFeed Inc. in New York.
 
Austin Matthews (2013) is a program manager at Open Health Care Clinic in Baton Rouge. He earned an MSW degree from LSU in 2017.
 
Carolyn Downer (2014) is public relations coordinator at Zehnder Communications.
 
Lea Ciskowski (2014) is working at Wampold Companies as their director of marketing and branding. She previously worked as a brand manager at MESH Integrated Marketing and Advertising.
 
Rebecca Doctor (2015) is the editor of DIG magazine in Baton Rouge.
 
Kevin Thibodeaux (2015) is a digital content editor for the Brookings Institute.
 
Fernanda Zamullio Suarez (2016) is a staff writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
 
Erinn Sala (2016) is the marketing manager for Perkins Rowe.
 
Bryce Benzine (2016) is a communications specialist for the Office of the Lt. Governor of Louisiana.
 
Achary






Lindsay Achary (2016) is employed as an account coordinator at Slingshot in Dallas. 
 




Jack Richards (2016) is a researcher for the Public Affairs Research Council in Baton Rouge.
 
Justin DiCharia (2016) is in law school at LSU.
 
Taylor Curet (2016) is a sports reporter/anchor at WDAM in Hattiesburg, Miss.
 
Danielle Kelley Tolbird (MMC, 2016) is the community development coordinator at the Northeast Louisiana Arts Council.
 
Nicole Plunkett (2017)  works in contracts at Dow Chemical.
 
Savanah Dickinson (2017) is working for the U.S. State Department in the Middle East.
 
Rose Velazquez   (2017) and Meg Ryan (2017)  are reporters for the Gannett Newspaper Network in Delaware/Maryland.
 
Sam Karlin (2017) is a full-time reporter for the Baton Rouge Business Report.
 
Willborn Nobles (2017) is a reporter for NOLA.com.
 
Kia Sims (Dec., 2017) started work Sept. 5 as faith and community outreach specialist for the Office of Governor John Bel Edwards. 

Marriages & Engagements

Katherine Reed Freman (2014) married David Taylor Carver in Lafayette, La. on February 22.

McAlum and Ricci
 



Jessica McAlum (2016) married R. Devin Ricci (LSU 2009, LSU Law 2012) in New Orleans on June 24.

Births

Danielle Doiron Leger (2005)  and Walter "Walt" J. Leger III welcomed daughter Catherine Victoria on April 22, 2016.

In Memoriam
Jack Thomas Conran (1956) died April 5, 2017, in Baton Rouge. He served in the U.S. Army Rangers during the Korean War and was stationed in Austria. He was a pharmaceutical sales representative for Bristol-Myers Squibb and retired in 1989.  
 
Curt Eysink (1986), a former Advocate journalist who led the Louisiana Workforce Commission from 2009 to 2016 and guided an ambitious redesign of the state's workforce development strategy, died April 28, 2017, after suffering a stroke. He was 53.

Reunions
Chance York (Ph.D., 2014), Minji Li (current Ph.D. candidate), Jason Turcotte (Ph.D.,2014) and Young Kim (Ph.D., 2016)




A group of alumni met at the International Communication Association convention in San Diego.  
 






Rick Perry  ('80, A&S), Jim Engster ('81), Craig Kelley ('82),  Steve Schneider ('83) and  Lester Duhe ('83)





A group of '80s alumni met in Baton Rouge before last year's Hall of Fame ceremony.









Happy Retirement Jay Shelledy!

Shelledy's Retirement Party

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