Top volunteers take lead in making Club global, promoting press freedom

Two National Press Club members received the organization’s top volunteer award on Jan. 12 for their efforts to keep the Club at the forefront of press freedom and to make it a center of global culture.

John Donnelly, chair of the Club’s Freedom of the Press Committee, won one of the Berny Krug Awards for directing the group in fulfilling one of the Club’s most important missions – upholding the rights of reporters to do their jobs wherever the story leads.

Jan Du Plain also won a Krug for planning and executing programs that have given the Club an international flavor. Last year, she chaired and organized the Club’s first international presidential inaugural as well as its first international cultural evening. Both events featured foreign dignitaries as speakers and groups of international performers.

The Krug Award, named after a former exemplary Club volunteer, recognizes the Club’s top volunteer each year. The Club also bestowed 80 Vivian awards to members for outstanding service to the Club in 2014. The Vivian is named after former Club President Vivian Vahlberg.

Donnelly garnered the Krug Award “for his longtime service to the Club, including serving as a member and an officer on the board of governors for many years and for this year providing truly outstanding leadership to the Freedom of the Press Committee,” Club President Myron Belkind said at an event in the Holeman Lounge.

Du Plain “contributed greatly to making the NPC truly global,” said Belkind, a former AP bureau chief in India, Japan and Britain who has made globalization a prominent theme of his presidency.

Belkind also presented President’s Awards to four committees – Freedom of the Press, Speakers, Newsmakers and Publications – for their work to ensure that the Club lives up to its motto of being a place where news happens.

“Something special happened this past year in a very enhanced way, and that is more than ever, we have been operating almost on a daily, 24-hour basis to have events that mirror the breaking new cycle of our profession,” Belkind said.

As examples, he pointed to the Freedom of the Press Committee issuing more than 30 statements whenever news broke about reporters being threatened or killed; the Newsmakers Committee hosting more than 50 news conference on timely topics; the Speakers Committee organizing 30 luncheons featuring prominent domestic and global leaders and the eight editors of the Wire, members of the Publications Committee, for producing a “near daily newsletter.”

Jerry Zremski, chair of the Speakers Committee, won the John Cosgrove Award that goes to a former Club president who remains deeply involved in the Club.

Belkind also presented a special “Rachel Award” to his wife Rachel for “her great support to me during my presidency.”

The winners of the Vivian Awards were Maria Recio, Will Lester, Mark Hamrick, Adam Konowe, Mike Freedman, Mik Hempen, Jack Williams, Pat Schoeni, Heather Forsgren-Weaver, Jan King, Joe Luchok, Joe Motheral, Tom McMahon, Lindsay Law Murphy, Paul Minehart, Danny Selnick, Steven Olikara, Ken Dalecki, John Donnelly, Rachel Oswald, Delphine Halgand, Kathy Kiely, Tam Harbert, Brooke Stoddard, Gil Klein, Elizabeth Smith Brownstein, Paul Merrion, Lou Priebe, Molly McCluskey, Maria San Jose, Josue Lopez Calderon, Sean Gibbons, Simon Barber, Tony Culley-Foster, Tara Compton, Jan Du Plain, Susan Heavey, Celia Wexler, Herb Perone, Tony Gallo, Jamie Horwitz, Frank Aukofer, Darlene Shields, Al Teich, Noel St. John, Herb Jackson, Jerry Zremski, Donna Leinwand Leger, Doris Margolis, Bob Carden, Angela Greiling Keane, Pat Host, Kasia Klimasinska, Marilou Donahue (posthumous), Andrea Snyder, Jen Judson, Steve Geimann, Bill McCloskey, Jodi Schneider, Lori Russo, Barbara Bird, Nyree Wright, Nikki Schwab, Fay Iudicello, Richard Meyer, Sean Lyngaas, Rachel Oswald, Yasmine El-Sabawi, C. Naseer Ahmad, Varun Saxena, Mark Schoeff Jr., Joe Sparks, Lorna Aldrich, Bill Miller, Sho Chandra and Jonathan Salant.