Los Angeles Valley College Press Release Paper

Write your press (news) release based on the scenario below. Remember that FORMAT and WRITING STYLE will be critically important in your grade.

Writing and Formatting Tips for News Releases (Links to an external site.)

https://fitsmallbusiness.com/press-release-format-… (Links to an external site.)

Press Release Scenario:

YOU ARE THE COLLEGE PR Professional, so write from that perspective:

Each year, your college awards honorary degrees to people who have made outstanding contributions to the state or to society in some way. This year two honorary degrees will be awarded at the commencement exercises, which will be held at 11 a.m. on May 14 in Memorial Coliseum.

You work part-time in the college public relations office, and your boss has asked you to write a press release announcing that the following people will be receiving honorary degrees at the Saturday morning ceremony:

George T. Hale, age 62, a 1975 graduate of the college and established the state’s first educational television cooperative in the late 1970s, will be cited for his “ability to envision the future and make it a reality for the state’s telecommunications industry.” When he retired from the presidency of Hale Communications Inc., last year, the company had more than 40 percent of the cable market. Hale, a multimillionaire, has donated thousands of dollars to the development of educational television. In addition, he built a camp for physically handicapped adults on his estate and sends more than 300 individuals there each spring and summer for an extensive recreation-training program. Hale lives in Apopka with his wife of 30 years, Elizabeth. They are the adoptive parents of two Korean children: Lee, 25 and Ben 22.

Rachel Cabanis, age 50, is a Florida native and a 1982 graduate of College and a graduate of the University of Florida Law School after a 20-year career as a legal secretary with her husband’s law firm in Orlando. Her famous book about her decision to go to law school and her experience there, Breaking Through, has been lauded as the “greatest statement of one woman’s choices written in this decade.” It won her a Pulitzer Prize (and a least a year’s worth of speaking engagements). Mrs. Cabanis, now separated from her husband, Roy Cabanis, has become a full partner at another Orlando law firm. She is being honored by College for her “honesty and integrity in making difficult choices in a complex world and succeeding despite numerous obstacles.”