Mark Trail Awards: June 21, 2007

• NOAA Press Release and Photo of 2007 event

• Photos of Award Winners, 2007 winners coming soon

1. Cable News Network (CNN) Weather

CNN, with a nationwide audience of more than 88 million households, has been helping to educate millions of people on the potential life saving benefits of NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards. CNN meteorologists routinely go on air at critical times before, during and after severe weather and outline the merits of NOAA Weather Radio, often with a receiver in hand. Following overnight tornadoes in central Florida this past February, CNN meteorologists Chad Myers and Jacqui Jeras spoke of NOAA Weather Radio as a reliable alert that could have awakened sleeping residents in the path of the severe weather. Ms. Jeras and Mr. Myers encouraged viewers to purchase a Weather Radio when dangerous snow and ice storms targeted the mid-Atlantic and northeast that same month. CNN raised awareness for NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards to countless people nationwide.

2. hhgregg Appliances, Inc. & WTHR Indianapolis, IN

WTHR's “Cause for Alarm” investigative series succinctly pointed out the need to monitor multiple sources for National Weather Service and civil emergency warnings, including sirens, their local television broadcasts, and NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards.

As part of the series, WTHR teamed with locally-established appliance and electronics distributor hhgregg to sell Public Alert Certified NOAA All-Hazards Radio.

Together, WTHR and hhgregg sold several thousand NOAA Public Alert radios to homeowners, businesses, and public agencies at a discount.

WTHR and hhgregg went above and beyond their commitment to improving use of NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards in Central Indiana, the “Cause for Alarm” series lead community leaders to evaluate and make improvements to the existing warning system. WTHR has made a significant impact on how we all protect the citizens of central Indiana from hazardous weather, and together with hhgregg has made a major contribution to a major surge in the number of NOAA Weather All-Hazards radio owners and listeners in central Indiana.

3. Harvey's Supermarkets & WALB-TV Albany, GA

Harvey's& WALB TV's Yolanda Amadeo teamed up to make NOAA Weather Radios more accessible to the public in rural southern Georgia. Radios were made available through a promotion in all Harvey stores throughout southern Georgia. Sales were well in excess of expectations and this public service effort made possible donations to nursing homes, day care centers and schools. Yolanda personally delivered, programmed and instructed over 150 radios to “locations of need.”

4. Houchens Industries & WBKO TV Bowling Green, KY

In the summer of 2006, WBKO TV Weather Director Chris Allen approached Houchens Industries, Inc. Marketing Director Alan Larsen with the idea of selling NOAA Weather Radios in their grocery stores within the WBKO viewing area.  Houchens, a growing private company, based in Bowling Green operates grocery and convenient stores in 17 southern states.  Houchens began making NWR SAME receivers available in their retail outlets shortly thereafter.  As part of the promotion, Houchens coordinated with the WBKO weather staff to schedule in store NWR programming sessions for customers.  In the first six months of the promotion, the WBKO- Houchens promotion greatly expanded NWR units in the homes and businesses of southern Kentucky, with WBKO staff having personally programmed more than 2500 units.  Considering the size of the Bowling Green television market (183 out of 210), these early numbers were truly impressive!

5. KSNT-TV & Bruce Jones (Topeka, KS )

Bruce Jones was instrumental in developing a statewide campaign promoting All Hazards NOAA Weather Radio in Kansas. He began the project in spring 2005 as part of a program promoting severe weather awareness and safety. He partnered with Dillon's

Grocery Stores to sell radios at grocery store locations across the state. This pilot program sold more than 10,000 radios across the state of Kansas with approximately 3,500 of these radios being sold in the Topeka County Warning Area.  

In addition, during 2006 severe weather season, Bruce Jones partnered with McDonalds to promote and sell weather radios at their restaurants in Topeka and on the Kansas Turnpike, which helped to fund the Topeka Ronald McDonald House.  

During the 2006 Holiday season Mr. Jones once again helped to champion weather radios at Walgreens Drug stores in Lawrence, Manhattan and Topeka where sales flourished throughout the year.

6. Publix Supermarkets, Lakeland, FL 33802
WFLA TV & Steve Jerve, Tampa, FL 33606
WSFA TV & Rich Thomas, Montgomery, AL
James Spann & ABC 33/40, Birmingham, AL

Publix Super Markets, Inc. has been successful beyond even the most optimistic expectations in their stores across Florida and Alabama since early February 2007. Publix together with WFLA-TV Tampa St. Petersburg, WFSA-TV Montgomery, AL and ABC 33/40, Birmingham, AL developed an awareness campaign that informed Publix shoppers of the life-saving value of having the NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards in their homes as a part of their severe weather plan. Through this action Publix and their TV station partners demonstrated their commitment to the safety of the communities they serve.

Mr. Steve Jerve, Chief Meteorologist, WFLA-TV/DT Tampa St. Petersburg, Rich Thomas, Chief Meteorologist, WSFA TV Montgomery, AL, and James Spann, Chief Meteorologist, ABC 33/40 Birmingham, AL are commended for working with Publix to craft and deliver an awareness campaign that will reach a broad audiences in Florida and Alabama. Steve, Rich, and James enthusiastically promote NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards to their viewers. Through their collective efforts the Publix promotion has increased the awareness to the benefits of NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards to a vast listening audience. Without a doubt Publix promotes public safety.

7. Nex-Tech (Rural Telephone Service) Lenora, KS

A major blizzard and ice storm moved across northwest Kansas from December 28 through December 30, 2006. The storm produced between two and three feet of snow over many locations across the area and coated other areas with a layer of ice one to two inches thick.

On December 30, 2006, local emergency response teams discovered that the NOAA Weather Radio transmitter (WWF87) tower in Lenora, Kansas, collapsed due to the weight of ice. Also, the Nex-Tech building used to house the transmitter was destroyed

Working through the National weather Service, Nex-Tech (Rural Telephone Service) developed a plan to erect a temporary tower and building to get NOAA Weather Radio programming on the air.

Despite snow drifts of four feet, a team of radio technicians, led by Ryan McClung, erected a temporary tower and shelter to again house the transmitter. Though the tower was only 50 feet high, the transmitter signal was strong enough to be heard in several communities. The temporary solution kept NOAA Weather Radio on the ai r..

The dedication of the Rural Telephone technicians exemplifies the meaning of partnership. Rural Telephone went well beyond what is normally expected to assist the NWS disseminate important information that helped save lives and protect property.

8. Southern Family Markets & WAFF-TV:
Brad Travis/Becky Shores

Brad Travis and Becky Shores of WAFF-TV were instrumental in developing and making the ongoing Tennessee valley NOAA Weather Radio outreach campaign an outstanding success. Several thousands NOAA Weather Radios have been sold at north Alabama Southern Family Markets due to the aggressive outreach campaign implemented by WAFF-TV. WAFF-TV has actively promoted NOAA Weather radio by providing on-air news stories related to NOAA Weather radio and has participated in 12 NOAA Weather Radio programming events across north Alabama. WAFF-TV representatives have also programmed weather radio receivers at these events, which have been a huge success.

WAFF-TV, the number one rated TV station in the Huntsville, AL market, with the leadership of Brad Travis and Becky Shores have led this outstanding NOAA Weather radio preparedness campaign. There has been a substantial increase in NOAA Weather radios and severe weather awareness in this severe weather prone Tennessee valley region.

9) WSIL TV (Southern IL): Jim Rasor

An extraordinary campaign to promote public safety through NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards climaxed with more than 5,000 weather radios being distributed in rural southern Illinois during the fall of 2006 to early spring 2007. WSIL TV 3 offered a weather radio promotion via their broadcasts and website and substantially expanded ownership in the region. WSIL TV capped off this successful promotion by assisting the new radio owners in programming their radios several of their annual severe weather seminars.

10. United Supermarkets & KVII TV (Amarillo, TX ):
Steve Kersh 

In February 2006, Steve Kersh at KVII-TV and United Supermarkets began a promotion to increase ownership of NOAA Weather Radios through a vigorous campaign at substantially reduced unit cost. The promotion was extremely successful and substantially increased radios in homes and businesses throughout the community of 300,000 residents.

Steve Kersh, his staff, and the management of KVII-TV have gone the extra mile to make this campaign a success. Not only does Steve and his staff regularly publicize this campaign as part of their routine weathercasts, but on numerous occasions the KVII weather staff have manned weather radio programming booths at local United Supermarkets. In some of these weather radio programming ventures, they teamed up with representatives from the Amarillo NWS. On April 8, 2006, KVII and the Amarillo NWS co-sponsored a public Severe Storm Spotter Training class where radios were sold and programmed on site. Recently, KVII was a co-sponsor of and helped promote the Amarillo NWS biennial Severe Weather Workshop. This regional event was attended by more than 400 people. Nearly 100 weather radios were sold and programmed on this day alone and many more were exposed to the benefits of NWR. Finally, KVII donates space on their television tower for the Amarillo NWR transmitter and has done so since the transmitter was established in the mid 1970's.

United Supermarkets have also been a key player in this campaign. Not only have they carried the radios in every store in the Texas Panhandle that are within the NWR coverage area, but they have willingly participated in the programming and outreach events previously noted. In addition, they have trained representatives within each store on how to program the radios when customers request assistance.

11. Kroger Supermarkets, WMCTV- Dave Brown, Wave-TV - John Belski, and WKYT TV: T.G. Shuck

They partnered to present an aggressive NOAA Weather Radio Public Alert campaign in the Memphis, Louisville, and Lexington markets to raise awareness and broaden ownership of NOAA Weather Radios. All Kroger's partners in cooperation with their local Weather Service forecast office, worked in their communities to sponsoring “Programming Days”. The promotions were part of their commitment to the communities they serve, making radio receivers available at a reduced price and helping program the radios, which hopefully reduce injury and loss of life in future severe weather or man made disasters.

12. Arkansas Department of Emergency Management (ADEM)

ADEM has provided more than $250,000.00 in financial support and publicity to the NOAA Weather Radio program in the recent past. ADEM funding was provided for NWR transmitters at Mount Ida, Russell, Mena, Morrilton, and Cherokee Village, Arkansas, serving more than 275,000 residents of Arkansas. These transmitters cover recreational areas that entertain an additional million people annually.

ADEM has also provided more than $60,000 in funding for NWR SAME receivers in six Arkansas counties in critical facilities. These counties used the funds to put receivers in such places as nursing homes, hospitals, hotels and motels, junior colleges, and convention centers.

13. Lt. General Russel L. Honoré, Commanding General, First United States Army

General Honoré has been nominated for his leadership to prepare the community at large for the next natural disaster. Everyone remembers him for the clean-up of New Orleans, but since then he has been working diligently in community churches, civic clubs, and town meetings to bring awareness to individual responsibilities to be prepared for the next natural or man made disaster. At the top of his list is owning a NOAA Weather Radio and giving them to your loved ones so that they will be prepared.

14. Representative Philip Hoy, Member, Indiana House of Representatives

Following the November 6, 2005 Evansville area tornado that claimed 25 lives, including 24 in Manufactured (mobile) homes. Indiana Representative Phil Hoy authored Indiana House Bill 1033, now known as CJs Law requiring all manufacturers' homes in Indiana to provide a NWR All-Hazards Public Alert receiver for all new or relocated homes. Under the bill, which became law on June 7, 2007 whenever licensed manufactured home installers attach a new or relocated mobile home to the ground, they must also install a NWR All-Hazards receiver inside. Rep. Hoy worked closely with the originator of the bill initiative, Kathryn Martin, whose 2 year old son C.J. lost his life while in a manufactured home during the tornado.

15. Kathryn Martin

Following the November 6, 2005 Evansville area tornado that claimed 25 lives including that of her 2 year old son, C.J., Kathryn Martin has been extremely proactive and effective in promoting NWR All-Hazards Public Alert radio ownership, particularly for those who live in manufactured (mobile) homes. One major and potentially far reaching example is her spearheading efforts to protect manufactured home residents throughout the state of Indiana by introducing a proposal nicknamed "C.J.'s Law" (Indiana House Bill 1033) which requires all mobile home manufacturers in Indiana to provide a NWR All-Hazards Public Alert receiver for all new or relocated manufactured homes.