NASJA - North American Snowsports Journalists Association

This Web site is intended for the use of members and prospective members of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association.

October 1, 2007 - Member information is now secure in the "Members Only" section of NASJA.ORG. To access the "Members Only" area click on the Login button on the top right. Click on the "Forgot Your Password" link on the Login page. You will be prompted for your complete e-mail address. Enter it. If you are a current NASJA member and your e-mail address is in the NASJA database, your login ID and password will be e-mailed to you. Use these to login and access the "Members Only" area.

Michael Strauss died Saturday, October 11, 2008 at the age of 96. According to his daughter, Ellen Boer, he was the oldest working sports writer in the world. Working over 75 years in the field, he was first published in The New York Times and most recently in Palm Beach Daily News as a sports columnist. During his 54 year career at The Michael Strauss

New York Times he was the ski editor for 25 years. Itï¿½is estimated that he wrote 1,600 ski stories during that time.

He was the co-founder of the Eastern Ski Writer's Association and president for two years. He was also a regular contributor to SKIER Magazine and the author of "Ski Areas USA." Strauss wrote about ski areas from Maine to California. He had a five-minute nightly ski talk for many years on radio station WQXR, New York. He would broadcast from wherever his travels took him, sometimes from telephone booths near highways.

Strauss covered the Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, Grenoble, Innsbruck, Lake Placid and Alberta. He visited well over 100 North American ski areas, large and small, as well as resorts in Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Yugoslavia, Norway, Sweden, Chile and Scotland

Asked through the years why he never became an expert skier himself, he had a ready answer. "I never found time to do much skiing. By the time I finished my interviews, wrote my stories and went into town to send them by Western Union to make my paper's deadlines, the lifts stopped running."

Ski pioneer Edna Strand Dercum died on Sept. 15, 2008, at the age of 94. With her husband of 71 years, she had moved to the Colorado high country in 1942, where they were instrumental in founding Arapahoe Basin (1946) and Keystone (1971). They created the legendary Ski Tip Lodge from an old stagecoach stop and operated it for many years. Edna was "one of us." Max taught and Edna studied forestry at Penn State University, and when she was learning to ski and was nervous about the sport, Max told her, "It's Easy, Edna, It's Downhill All the Way." That became the title of autobiography, written in 1981. And with a book under her belt, she was, in a sense, also a ski writer. On the slopes, Edna was a quick study, becoming a formidable ski racer and winning 75 gold medals between 1938 and 1989. The Dercums were inducted both into the US National Ski Hall of Fame and the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. The Dercums werea lready in their 90s when they received NASJA's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007 and unable to drive across the mountains to Crested Butte to receive it. They were thrilled when former NASJA president Claudia presented it to them in their memorabilia- and medal-filled home near Keystone, where she took the attached photograph.

At the 70th anniversary banquet of the National Ski Patrol held in Lakewood, Colorado, on June 20, 2008, ESWA press member Gretchen Besser was honored with a special award for having served 30 years as National Ski Patrol Historian and 40 years as a ski patroller.

During her tenure, Gretchen has served as a volunteer at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid; interviewed hundreds of patrollers around the country and published the official history of the NSP entitled "The National Ski Patrol: Samaritans of the Snow" (1983); represented the National Ski Patrol on a U.S. ski industry mission to China headed by Bob Parker (1986); moved the NSP records and archives to the Denver Public Library (1992); set up a museum space at the National Office in Lakewood (1997-98); and wrote 75 articles for "Ski Patrol Magazine."

A crowd of some 200 friends and colleagues of the long time New York Olympic Regional Development Authority press chief surprised Caligiore with a party in his honor July 24 in Lake Placid.

Caligiore, the 2006 winner of NASJA's Bob Gillen Memorial Award for excellence in communications professionalism, will be moving to South Carolina at the end of the summer. He has lived and worked in Lake Placid for most of the last 40 years, serving as ORDA press chief since 1998.

On hand for the surprise party were ESWA president Martin Griff, ESWA and NASJA past president Phil Johnson, and ESWA past president and NASJA secretary/treasurer Mitch Kaplan. The trio presented Caligiore with a framed reproduction of the February 15, 2007 front page of the local daily describing the previous' day blizzard that shut down Lake Placid and the surrounding area, with the caption "from the NASJA and ESWA friends you are leaving behind".

No successor to Caligiore has yet been named.

Vancouver, BC - More than 200 representatives from international news wire services, photo agencies, newspapers, internet sites and non-rights holding broadcast organizations are expected to attend the Vancouver 2010 World Press Briefing this fall.

Scheduled for November 18 to 21, 2008, the World Press Briefing will outline detailed information about the services and facilities for the written and photographic press. The briefing will include presentations by various Games functions, including Accreditation, Accommodation, Rate Card, Technology and Transportation. The four-day program features detailed tours of the competition and non-competition venues, with an emphasis on the services and facilities for the press, including plans for the Main Press Centre and venue media centres. Tourism agencies are also participating in the briefing by providing destination information about the Games host region.

"The goal of the World Press Briefing is to present VANOC's current operational plans in order to help our press clients with their 2010 Winter Games coverage plans," said Terry Wright, executive vice president, services and games operations. "Our Press Operations team is focused on providing a high level of service and convenient facilities for the world's press so they can tell the story of the 2010 Winter Games in both an efficient and exciting manner. Representatives of the leading press organizations from around the world will have an opportunity to experience our region, from the ice arenas in Vancouver to the mountain slopes in Whistler."

The International Olympic Committee has established a quota of 2,800 accreditations covering the categories of written and photographic press and non-rights holding broadcast organizations.

The concept of the World Press Briefing debuted before the Sydney 2000 Games. The World Press Briefing is held one year before the Games; it presents the Organizing Committee's detailed plans for Games-time print media facilities and services.

Press organizations interested in registering for the Vancouver 2010 World Press Briefing are invited to visit the Press Operations section of the media centre at vancouver2010.com: http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/OrganizingCommittee/MediaCentre/PressOperations

Vancouver 2010 World Press Briefing - Quick Facts