Missouri Memo

A Rewarding Season

Posted at October 28, 2006 10:48

By Danita Allen Wood

“To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal,” said the late Peter Ustinov, though the quote also has been attributed to Mark Twain.

With that in mind, we at MissouriLife never refuse an award, but we will give them some noise! We’re so honored to be recognized and feel a bit like Sally Field when she accepted her second Oscar with the enthusiastic line, “You like me!” We thank you for liking us!

We are pleased and proud to have received the tourism industry’s 2005 Navigator Media Award. The Missouri Tourism Awards were presented at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism at Springfield in October. The thirty-seventh annual conference was coordinated by the Missouri Division of Tourism. Each year, the Navigator Media Award recognizes a print, broadcast, or electronic medium that has supported and promoted Missouri tourism with stories and images that inform and entice. Indeed, we’re almost surprised ourselves that nearly ten percent of our subscribers are from out of state. Who knows, a holiday gift subscription might lure one of your loved ones to Missouri! Everyone on our staff contributed to our receiving this award, so we all share the credit.

In September, we received our second bronze award for Overall Art Direction from the International Regional Magazine Association at the group’s annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. Thanks go to our Art Director Drew Barton and Graphic Designer Barb King for making us look so good.

Drew also received an impressive national honor from the editors of the biggest magazine about magazines. He was named to Folio: magazine’s Dream Team as an up-and-coming art director. The team of magazine professionals was selected from a group of two hundred nominees to reflect the staff industry leaders would want on board to launch a new magazine. I first hired Drew as a graphic designer for Weekend magazine in 1998 when he was a sophomore at the University of Missouri at Columbia and I was a faculty member at the School of Journalism. We worked together for three years before he graduated and moved to California. He began designing MissouriLife from the West Coast, before Missouri lured him back to St. Louis in 2003.

I’d also like to introduce our newest team member Margaret Rose Tollerton. Margaret joins us as an advertising executive who helps our clients plan successful marketing programs. Margaret is one of the warmest, most cheerful, enthusiastic, and encouraging people I know, and I have every confidence she’ll be an award-winning member of our staff, as well. Simply, Margaret inspires.

We wish you an inspiring 2006 filled with wonderful new discoveries. In keeping with MissouriLife’s motto “The Spirit of Discovery,” may you greet the New Year with the vigor of this quote — which we found attributed only to Mark Twain:

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

December 2005

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