An important anniversary is approaching.

Sixty years ago, a group of young journalists met at the Denver Press Club and formed the Colorado Professional Chapter of Society of Professional Journalists.

They were an idealistic bunch who believed that theirs was an honorable professional and not just a paycheck.

Reading an early history of the group, I was struck at how their concerns back then are still our concerns today. To mark these six decades of standing for journalism, Colorado SPJ is hosting an anniversary celebration in the very place where it all began at the Denver Press Club.

So on Oct. 22 from 6 to 8 p.m., we will gather to celebrate our heritage. SPJ President Kevin Smith has agreed to join us that evening, which will also feature talks by former President Fred Brown and former Regional Director Deb Hurley.

We’ll also be hosting a silent auction that night, with proceeds to go toward the Terry Harper Memorial Fund.

One of best things that’s happened in Region 9 recently has been the revival of our New Mexico Pro Chapter.

Credit for this development goes to my predecessor Deb Hurley, who made New Mexico her priority and urged me to do likewise.

Tom Hallman also gets a tip of the hat. His narrative writing workshop in Albuquerque earlier this year served as a catylyst to our organizing efforts.

Credit also goes to a dedicated group of SPJ members – some long-time SPJ folks and some relative newcomers – who have done a great job of making the new chapter a reality.

On Saturday, the folks on the chapter’s interim board hold their second meeting. In the two months since they started, they have drafted a set of proposed bylaws, elected officers, appointed committee chairs and created a very user friendly website. Check it out at:

http://www.nmspj.org/

Their hard work is getting noticed. The folks in New Mexico were excited to get the news that the SPJ Executive Committee will hold its winter meeting in Albuquerque on Jan. 15-17.  That will be right around the time that the newly elected New Mexico board members will be sworn in.

Stay tuned for more developments.

One of the highlights of the SPJ National Convention in Indianapolis for me was the recognition that two chapters in Utah won for their fine work.

First, the Utah Headliners was chosen as SPJ’s small chapter of the year. By anyone’s reckoning, this pro chapter had an exceptional year in 2008-09.

Then on top of that honor, the chapter also received a “Circle of Excellence” Award for it’s work in the area of the First Amendment and Freedom of Information issues.

Here are two examples of the kind of work this chapter does year in and year out. During the last legislative session, the chapter worked with lawmakers to defeat a bill that would have undermined Utah’s Government Records Access Managment Act.

The chapter also partially funded the Utah Foundation for Open Government, which received a $9,000 grant from the Knight-Ridder Foundation. The money will be used to produce a video on the importance of open government and getting involved in your local government. The video will be distributed to high schools throughout Utah.

Here’s what I wrote about Utah in my annual report:

“If all chapters were half as effective as Utah Headliners in standing up for the public’s right to know, we would all be better off.”

And last but not least, Weber State University won the top student chapter for Region 9. The chapter organized an outstanding set of programs that drew several hundred people to hear about topics such as ethics, diversity and new media.

Way to go Utah.

Paula Pant is our Region 9 volunteer of the month.

At the moment, Paula is one year into a two-year trip around the world. It’s part of her “Gap Year” plan of gathering incredible life experience.

Her travels, though, did not prevent Paula from being a valuable member of the Colorado SPJ board. Using a Skype connection, she took part in several meetings from various Internet cafes, including one from a small village in Spain.

Paula also was the principal organizer of Colorado SPJ’s first ever Lowell Thomas Award for International Journalism. From places like Bali and Cambodia, Paula made arrangements for New York Times reporter Helene Cooper to travel to Denver to accept the award.

 At the moment, Paula is 4-wheeling across Western Australia. If you’d like to follow her exploits, visit her blog at:

http://americangirltravel.blogspot.com/

Top of the Rockies is not your grandfather’s journalism contest. For that matter, it’s not your father’s either.

In our contest, you will find fewer of the traditional categories that most every competition includes.

Instead, you will find the kind of online categories that reflect the way news has migrated to the web in recent years.

Top of the Rockies is also unique in one other respect. We are one of the few contests to survey the best of the new convergent landscape of news in the Rocky Mountain West.

Go to the websites of newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations and you’ll find everyone is doing video, audio and photo slide shows.

Rather than gear this competition to the tradition metric of printed circulation, we’ve tried to level this playing field by creating two online division based upon the number of employees.

One last thing, in judging our contest, we will ask our out-of-state SPJ chapters, to the extent possible, to have at least two people judge each category. Far too often, contests are decided by the opinions of one person. We will strive to do better.

You can check out the categories, rules and entry forms for this year’s contest by going to this link: http://www.coloradospjpro.com/contest.html