In 2021 CAPIO celebrated turning 50 through momentous interviews, articles, and an art contest, culminating in a 50th Birthday Bash in Olympic Valley as a part of the first CAPIO conference after the 2020 COVID shut down. Enjoy this series of articles, interviews and videos.
In case you missed it – or in case you want to see it again……enjoy this celebration of CAPIO over 50 years. From interviews with long-time CAPIO members, to birthday shout-outs from friends far and wide, to reliving memories of fax machines before email……enjoy this video tribute shown at CAPIO’s Birthday Bash celebration at the 2021 CAPIO Annual Conference on November 4. Thank you to all of those who submitted tributes, photos, memories or interviews. We want to thank Kerry Shearer for his fantastic work in producing the video and recognize Sylvia Ornelas, VP Awards for her work in coordinating this special piece for CAPIO.
Congratulations to Vito Labellarte and Westamerica Communications on their entry which garnered top honors in our poster contest! Conference participants will be able to pick up a copy of this award-winning poster at the 2021 CAPIO Annual Conference!
Recently, CAPIO was fortunate to sit down with one of California’s foremost experts on public agency/institution communications and past Paul B. Clark award winner, Sheri Benninghoven, APR. She specializes in strategic communications counsel and crisis communications planning/response for cities, counties, special districts, colleges and universities.
When I began my public information career nearly a half century ago, there were no fax machines. Today, no one uses fax machines anymore. We mailed our news releases through the U.S. Postal Service. Our most modern technology was portable electric typewriters. There was a news cycle for the morning and evening papers, and television news used film.
This year marks CAPIO’s 50th year since being established. In that time, a lot has changed with the way in which we communicate. However, in many ways, the baseline of what we do remains – and that is informing, educating, and engaging our communities to encourage them to participate in the democratic process, share their perspective and create an emotional response that leads to action.
In light of CAPIO’s half a century milestone, we are chatting with folks who work specially in the communications area of government or who are part of the government sector in general.
In honor of CAPIO’s 50th Birthday, Gail Morgan shared these fun insights from her 27 years as the city of Santa Clarita’s PIO.
For half a century, the California Association of Public Information Officials (CAPIO) has been the linkage between good government, the professionals that help to inform, educate, and engage, and the communities we serve. With communication, we made and continue to make miracles happen.
“If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.”
― Jim Rohn
