Beech Tree News Network

The Don Brod Award, which recognizes members making significant contributions to the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE), was presented to Dr. Deborah T. Givens at the association’s annual conference July 9-13 at South Dakota State University in Brookings.

The award has been presented since 2012 by the ISWNE executive director in honor of Brod, the only person to serve ISWNE as both executive director (previously known as the executive secretary-treasurer) and president. Brod was executive secretary-treasurer from 1981-92 as journalism chairman at Northern Illinois University and ISWNE president in 2008-09.

The plaque reads, “Presented to Deborah Givens who has helped advance the cause of ISWNE for more than 15 years. She has served two terms as president, helped plan in-person and virtual conferences, paid for memberships for former students and editor-friends, helped launch a college version of the Golden Quill, and proofread dozens of publications.”

The Golden Quill is an annual contest hosted by ISWNE that recognizes outstanding editorial writing about community issues.

A member since 2007, Givens co-hosted the 2010 conference at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, where she taught journalism and later served as chair of the Department of Communication, retiring in 2020.

Givens and her husband, Roger, founded The Butler County Banner newspaper in Morgantown, Kentucky, in 1982. They later purchased The Green River Republican, combining the two newspapers, which they published through 1998. Her first journalism position was as an editor with the Al Smith Communications newspaper group in south central Kentucky, where she started in 1974 immediately after graduation from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana with a degree in journalism. She completed a Masters in Public Administration at Western Kentucky University in 2003 and a Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Kentucky in 2012.

ISWNE was founded in 1955 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and is headquartered at the Missouri Press Association in Columbia, Missouri. The association has members in several countries including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Nepal and South Africa.