Arkansas Press Women - 2002 Communicator of Achievement

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CoA 2002

2002 Communicator of Achievement: Pearl Serbus

By Carol Sanders Reiner and Anale Yarbrough, CoA co-directors

Arkansas' Communicator of Achievement for 2002 is Pearl Serbus, a member of the National Federation of Press Women since 1944. Pearl Serbus at NFPW convention 2002 She also won first runner-up in the 2002 national competition. In the photo at right, she holds her certificate awarded at the 2002 NFPW convention in Bismarck, N.D.

Three affiliates – Arkansas, Illinois and Indiana – are proud to claim Pearl Serbus as their own. How could they not – when her membership in NFPW has known her talent, commitment and service.

Her career includes many aspects of the communication profession – reporter; news, feature, food, education and travel writer; radio broadcaster; columnist; book author; food stylist; freelancer; consultant and editor.

Thousands wrote the Chicago Herald and Examiner for tickets to her live broadcasts and food demonstrations from the Chicago Civic Opera House. She succeeded Leona Malek as Prudence Penny for Hearst’s Examiner. Her cookbook 52 Victory Meals, written while test kitchen operator for the Household Science Institute, helped Americans through World War II. Millions of copies were sold nationwide.

After a brief hiatus to marry and have three sons, she became a correspondent for the Calumet Index and rose through the ranks to editor-in-chief of Index Publications (a chain of 10 newspapers) before she retired to pursue a career as a travel writer and consultant.

Intertwined with her career was always public service for which she received numerous awards. She was the first woman to serve on the board of the Chicago South Chamber of Commerce. She is a 20-year volunteer in the communications/marketing department of Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute (CARTI).

An NFPW member for 58 years and a founding member of POPPS (Parley of Past Presidents State), Pearl is still an active journalist. A book review was published in the January/February 2002 issue of NFPW Agenda.

For information on APW's Communicator of Achievement nominating process, see this page.

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