Larry Cohen, a familiar face at many conferences, is NSNC’s new Vice President. He was elected at the general membership meeting which closed the 35th annual conference in Detroit.
Cohen will fill out the term of Karen Rinehart, who stepped down for personal reasons. He and others on the nominating committee’s slate of officers were unopposed.
The other new officers are: James E. (Jim) Casto, Treasurer, and Rose A. Valenta, Membership Chair. Three incumbents were re-elected for two-year terms: Wayne Chan, Secretary; Dave Astor, Archivist; and Mike Deupree, Contest Chair.
They will take seats on the Board of Directors, which includes Ben S. Pollock, President; Robert Haught, Newsletter Editor; Sheila Moss, Web Editor; Russell Frank, Education Chair; Samantha Bennett, Past President; and Ed Grisamore, 2012 Conference Chair.
At Large members may be appointed by the board at its first meeting following the conference.
Cohen joined NSNC in 1996 and has experience in government and teaching as well as journalism. A columnist for the Hartford (Conn.) Courant and editorial board member for several years, Cohen relocated to Sanibel Island, Fla., where he continues to write for the Courant and other New England publications.
The new veep is a relative newcomer, compared to Casto, who has been on the membership rolls since at least 1985, the most recent newsletter in the NSNC archives, which published a list of members. Casto, a retired columnist for the Huntington, W.Va. Herald-Dispatch, also is an author and teacher. He is president of the NSNC Education Foundation.
Valenta, a freelance columnist from Philadelphia, is well known among attendees at the biennial Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop and members of the Yahoo humor writers discussion group. She writes “Rosie’s Renegade Humor Blog” and is author of Sitting on Cold Porcelain.
More complete biographies of all board members may be found at https://www.columnists.com/?page_id=2098.
