NCPRSA Events

McKimmon Conference and Training Center | Raleigh, NC

REGISTRATION/BREAKFAST (8-9 A.M.)

Connect with strategic communications professionals from across the region over light bites and beverages.

8:50 a.m. -  NCPRSA President Victoria Moore welcomes attendees and kicks off the day.

OPENING KEYNOTE (9-9:50 A.M.)

Truth Under Pressure: Communicating When Nobody Agrees on What’s True

Communicate with integrity when information moves fast, misinformation moves faster, and audiences disagree on what’s true. Drawing on newsroom and public relations experience, this keynote explores how to build credibility, maintain trust, and guide organizations through uncertainty—even before all the facts are known. Leave with practical strategies for difficult conversations, transparent messaging, and trusted counsel under pressure.

Mikaya Thurmond, CEO of Milan Public Relations and former WRAL-TV anchor and reporter, is a 2025 Ragan Top Women in Communications Crisis Navigator honoree. Her reporting earned two Associated Press awards and four Emmy nominations, with appearances on CNN, CBS Evening News, NBC’s Today Show, and The Weather Channel. She advises organizations on strategic communications, media relations, and crisis management and teaches public relations at NC State University. 

BREAKOUT SESSION #1 (10-10:30 a.m.)

Choose to attend one of the following three sessions: 

1. Your Audience Is Not Just Your Customer: How stakeholder engagement keeps issues from becoming crises

Turn stakeholder concerns into opportunities to build trust before issues become crises. Using North Carolina’s data center debate—including concerns about water, energy, infrastructure, noise, and land use—senior leaders from E&V Strategic Communications, a North Carolina-based firm and NCPRSA sponsor, show how early, honest engagement closes information gaps and supports community relationships. Apply these lessons to expansion, major projects, and other decisions that affect communities. 

2. Built Before It Breaks: Strengthening Trust in an AI-Driven World

Build credibility before a crisis hits. Discover how an organization’s public record shapes trust among audiences, journalists, search engines, and AI tools.  Formation PR + Brand Founder and CEO Erica McArthur introduces Trust Architecture: a practical approach to strengthening the stories, evidence, expertise, relationships, and consistent public signals that shape an organization’s reputation over time.

3. Hurricane Helene Crisis Communications [Student Track]

Lillian Govus, APR explores Western North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene response and the realities of communicating through a large-scale disaster—from water, power, road, and phone outages to election complications and misinformation.

BREAKOUT SESSION #2 (10:40-11:10 a.m.)

Choose to attend one of the following three sessions:

1. Truth Under Fire: When the Story Breaks Before the Facts Settle

A crisis communications workshop on Climate United’s response to the EPA funding freeze. 

Go inside Climate United’s communications response to the EPA funding freeze and moves to terminate Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants. Examine crisis decisions where public funding, organizational reputation, and community impact collide. Designed for communications leaders, nonprofit executives, public-affairs teams, and advocates, this workshop offers practical lessons for responding when your organization’s mission becomes the story.

Panelists:

• Brooke Durham, former Director of Communications for Climate United
• Tucker Bartlett, Director of Climate Capital for Self-Help

2. Choose Your Own Adventure Crisis Exercise  

Eva Hornak, APR helps you take the decision-maker’s seat in the first hour of a crisis. Choose next steps, respond to complications, and practice empathy-first decisions aligned with PRSA standards.

4. A case study in campus crisis comms [Student Track]

A campus incident at UNCW quickly escalated into national coverage, online misinformation, coordinated social media activity, and public scrutiny. Sydney Bouchelle offers practical strategies for balancing speed with accuracy, coordinating with leadership and public safety partners, managing misinformation, and supporting audiences during a prolonged crisis. Firsthand experience and post-incident analysis offer lessons for any communicator navigating a fast-moving story.

 BREAKOUT SESSION #3 (11:20-11:50 a.m.)

Choose to attend one of the following three sessions:

1. Beyond the Headline: What Crisis Response Looks Like from Both Sides

Lessons from a Journalist Turned PR Professional

Get a newsroom perspective on crisis response from former TV journalist and PR strategist Roxy Garrity. Learn what reporters need during breaking news, how to build trust in the first hours of a crisis, and how to prepare your team and messaging before pressure hits. Leave with practical ways to move quickly across earned, social, and paid channels. 

2. The Most Trusted Person in the Room. Move beyond taking orders and into strategic communications leadership. Join Diane Mulligan to explore how to shift from "order taker" to trusted advisor—and make your counsel part of the conversation, not an afterthought. 

3. Receipts Over Résumés [Student Track]

Show your value beyond a résumé. In this student-focused session, Tawanda Carlton explores portfolios, public points of view, content, analysis, and strategic positioning that help emerging communicators demonstrate what they bring to the profession.

INSPIRE AWARDS LUNCHEON (12-1 p.m.)

Celebrate the region’s standout communications campaigns, projects, and initiatives at NCPRSA’s InSpire Awards luncheon. The awards recognize innovative work from agencies, corporations, nonprofits, associations, government offices, and solo practitioners.

CBS 17 anchor Bill Young emcees the ceremony, featuring the announcement of the 2026 Michael L. Herman Excellence in Mentoring Award winner.

BREAKOUT SESSION #4  (1:10-1:50 p.m.)  

1. When the Money Runs Thin: How Volunteer Strategies Strengthen Nonprofits

This panel will feature professionals with engagement roles at corporate, nonprofit, and volunteer organizations. Panelists will share insights about the critical role volunteerism and community engagement plays - not only for nonprofits, but for corporate partners - and the impact it has on local communities, corporate reputation, and branding initiatives. This panel is hosted by PR for Good, NCPRSA’s give-back initiative.

Moderator: PR for Good Co-lead Kiersten Wolf Williams.

Panelists:

• Rose Thompson, Executive Director of Activate Good

Rose Thompson has dedicated more than 13 years to advancing service as Executive Director of Activate Good. Her background spans education, youth development, and volunteerism programs in Wisconsin, New York, Georgia, and North Carolina. She also serves on the North Carolina Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, championing civic engagement and stronger community connections.

• Suzie Koonce, Senior Community Relations Consultant, Vice President Philanthropy and Community Impact at Wells Fargo & Company

Suzie Koonce brings more than 20 years of experience in community relations and corporate giving to Wells Fargo’s partnerships and philanthropy across North Carolina, from the Piedmont/Triad to the coast, including statewide initiatives. Previously, she led community initiatives for Lenovo North America and the A.J. Fletcher Foundation. She builds public-private partnerships that expand access to opportunity and empower communities.

2. Stop Hiding Behind the Statement: Using Video to Build Trust Before, During and After a Crisis

Use video to show leadership, accountability, and humanity before, during, and after a crisis. Learn how to build credibility, address misinformation, and communicate authentically without adding unnecessary risk. David Griffith (Senior PR Strategist, Brasco ///) offers strategic communications and client-counsel insights, while Jarvis Rooker (Senior Video Producer, Brasco ///) shares practical lessons for producing effective video under pressure. 

3. From Classroom to Career: Resume Tips That Get Noticed [Student Track]

Ready to take your résumé from classroom to career? Join Brett Chambers for résumé tips designed to help your application get noticed. Discover how to present your experience with clarity and make your résumé a stronger introduction to your next opportunity.

AFTERNOON Plenary  (2-2:50 P.M.)

“Media as Watchdogs of Democracy: Have Journalists Lived Up to Their Role?” Is the fourth estate, its role as government watchdogs — and, by default, our very own democracy — in crisis? What does this mean for PR professionals?  With seventy-one percent of Americans saying democracy is under attack, this panel explores how shrinking local newsrooms and declining investigative reporting affect accountability—and what threats to the watchdog role of the press could mean for PR professionals

• Panelists:
  •  Irv Joiner, Professor and Associate Dean of the NCCU School of Law,
  • Carl Kenney, Assistant Professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media
  • Bobby Ampezzan, a Senior Public Relations Account Executive and a former public radio and print news reporter and editor whose national stories have been broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend ATC and published by The Guardian newspaper and Oxford American magazine.
  • Invited: Bervette Carree, News Director at ABC11/WTVD-TV

Moderator: Rod Carter, CBS17. A CBS 17 weeknight anchor and director of publicity for Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., Carter brings experience in journalism and public relations. He joined CBS 17 after nearly two decades at WFLA in Tampa. He holds degrees in Broadcast Journalism from Florida A&M University and Journalism and Media Studies from the University of Alabama and began doctoral studies at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville in spring 2026. His National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) leadership includes Executive Board Secretary and 50th Anniversary Committee Chair.

CLOSING REMARKS (2:50-3 p.m.)

NCPRSA President Victoria Moore and Vice President Jenny Shields close the day with reflections and a look ahead for the chapter.