Thursday, March 10, The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel and Mesa State College teamed up to send a group of mass communication majors to Denver for the fifth annual Rocky Mountian PBS NewsMakers Luncheon. The luncheon was held at the historic Brown Palace Hotel in downtown Denver.

The luncheon is used as a fundraiser and to honor the employees that work for Rocky Mountain PBS. A Colorado community member is also honored by being recognized for exceptional leadership or innovation in the fields of education, health, public affairs, business and other fields. This member is given the Be More Award.

This year’s award recipient was Susan Birch who was recognized for her compassion and caring in the field of healthcare. Not only has she traveled to Kampala, Uganda to serve the women and children, but also she has been the key leader implementing health care systems throughout Colorado towns.

The NewsMakers Luncheon also invited Hari Sreenivasan from PBS NewsHour to be the keynote speaker. Patience Kanda a junior studying mass communication at Mesa State said, “It was really fun, and I liked Hari. I felt like he was so driven and so contained at the same time.”

Sreenivasan works as a correspondent and the Director of Digital Partnerships at the NewsHour. He comes from a background working with commercial news organizations such as The Early Show, and ABC News.

Sam Kilman, another mass communication student, was surprised with how many different positions Sreenivasan has held within the media world. “He has just moved from place to place and has already accomplished so much,” Kilman said.

Nine students and two professors came with the group from Mesa State. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel and Mesa State College sponsored an entire table for the luncheon event.

Doug Price, the president and CEO of Rocky Mountain PBS also serves on the Board of Trustees at Mesa State. “It’s good to see some Mavericks here,” Price said during the luncheon.

“Doug was fun to watch and listen to,” said Catie Wezensky a junior mass communications student. “He really loves what he is doing. You could tell he was very passionate.”

After the luncheon, which served a three course waited meal, the students were invited to attend a press conference with Sreenivasan. Senior Katie Schultz asked where Sreenivasan thought media was going.

“I hope it gets back to storytelling,” Sreenivasan said. He said that today’s media has become a lot like audience gathering and less about the art of telling stories.

Schultz was grateful she got to attend the luncheon this year. “It was helpful and really great to see a younger person in the profession who is so successful,” Schultz said. “Getting to see where he is taking the future of media is important to where I want to take my career in this field,” she said.

Lauren Bell, Kyle Cooper, Liz Dearstyne, Sarah Fast, Patience Kanda, Sam Kilman, Charlie Martinez, Katie Shultz, and Catie Wezensky are all mass communication students from Mesa State College that were able to attend the Rocky Mountain PBS NewsMakers Luncheon.

cmartine@mesastate.edu