Natalea Watkins Communicator of the Year
Nominate a colleague for the 2023 Natalea Watkins Communicator of the Year. Nominations are due by 5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 2. The award will be presented at the 2023 OCPRA Fall Workshop on Nov. 15.
The Oklahoma College Public Relations Association presents the Natalea Watkins Communicator of the Year Award to an individual whose service and leadership have set a high standard for others. The recipient must demonstrate leadership that has had a positive influence for the recipient’s institution as well as for the state system of higher education. Nominations for the Watkins Award, OCPRA’s most prestigious award, are accepted from individuals who work for an OCPRA member institution or OSRHE Communicators Council member institutions.
Nominations are reviewed each fall by the selection committee, which is comprised of previous Watkins Award recipients.
The OCPRA Board of Directors, working with OSRHE Communicators Council, created the Communicator of the Year program in 2003. The first award recipient was Natalea Watkins, longtime associate vice president for communications at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. So effective was her leadership in both OCPRA and Communicators Council that, beginning in 2004, the award was renamed the Natalea Watkins Communicator of the Year Award.
2005 – Donna Spain-Bryant
Oklahoma GEAR UP
2004 – Bill Guffey
Director of Public Relations (Retired)
Carl Albert State College