Our History: Significant Events
Below are some landmark dates and events in Woman’s Press Club of Indiana’s 100 years. Thanks to secretary Marion Garmel and other members who compiled these dates.
1913 — Woman’s Press Club of Indiana is founded Feb. 18 at a meeting of 13 women journalists and activists at Ayres Tea Room in Indianapolis. A second meeting in March added 15 women to the founding members. At right is Harriet Henton, one of the women who suggested creating the organization. (Courtesy Miami Co. Historical Society.)
1915 — In the Woman’s Press Club yearbook of 1915-16, founding member Hester Alverson Moffett wrote of the two-year-old organization: 
“In the Woman’s Press Club, we have a group of women who have an opportunity to voice the new demands and purposes of women in a far reaching and effective way. There are new methods and new traditions to be established in society and politics, and women are to have a great part in this work. What body of women has a better opportunity to lead in those things than the press club? What body of women is more in the public eye or has the public ear more than the press club?”
1937 — Woman’s Press Club of Indiana becomes a founding affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women. WPCI’s Vera Hall is elected NFPW first vice president and Louise Eleanor Ross Kleinhenz is elected secretary.
1937 — WPCI holds its first communications contest. The subjects are short stories and poetry, and prize money was $10 for first place. Still an annual event, the WPCI contest is one of the few contests to provide opportunities for women journalists throughout the state, including those working on smaller newspapers and in rural areas.
1940 — WPCI participates in the newly established NFPW Communications Contest.
1962 — The Kate Milner Rabb Award is established as WPCI’s highest award. It honors professional excellence and service to the club in the current year. Kate Milner Rabb was a columnist for the Indianapolis Star and president of WPCI in 1929, 1930 and 1931.
1963 — Hortense Myers is the first delegate from Woman’s Press Club of Indiana to be elected president of the National Federation of Press Women. Myers was a longtime UPI reporter and president of WPCI from 1954-1956.
1963— Woman’s Press Club of Indiana hosts the National Federation of Press Women convention in Indianapolis for the first time.
1965 — Marie Fraser is named the first Communicator of Achievement nominee from WPCI to compete for the National Federation of Press Women’s highest award. After a career in journalism in Indianapolis, Fraser became director of information services at Ball State University in 1960 and served 27 years under six presidents, until her retirement in 1986.
1966 — WPCI nominee Hortense Myers is named NFPW Communicator of Achievement.
1973 — Naomi Whitesell is the second delegate from WPCI to become president of NFPW.
1974 — Legislative Awareness Seminar is established by WPCI, Women in Communications Inc. and Women in Radio and Television. It continues through 1986 with WPCI’s Jackie Davis and Ann W. King as co-chairs.
1975 — The Honeycomb Award is established to recognize the entrant with the highest number of award points in the annual WPCI Communications Contest.
1977 —Hortense Myers, past president and former WPCI Communicator of Achievement, is the first WPCI member to be inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. She was the first woman to work for the International Press News Service (INS) in 1942, then began along career with UPI in 1958.
1979 — Woman’s Press Club of Indiana hosts its second NFPW convention in Indianapolis. Past President Betty Childers is convention chairperson.
1986 — WPCI member Mary Benedict is inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. She was a longtime high school journalism teacher and also served as director of the Indiana High School Journalism Institute.
1986 — The WPCI Education Fund Inc., offering scholarships to communicators and incentives for high school and college students interested in communications careers, is granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.
1987 — Member Dann Denny becomes the first male to win the Honeycomb Award for most winning entries in the annual communications contest. He’ll win four more times over the next few years.
1988 — Member Gene Slaymaker interrupts Denny’s run to become the second male to win the Honeycomb Award.
1989 — Hester Alverson Moffett, WPCI’s first president, is inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. Her editorials in the Elwood newspaper sparked the establishment of the public library there.
1990 — WPCI nominee Dorothy Steinmeier is named NFPW Communicator of Achievement
1992 — WPCI member Esther Griffin White (1869-1954) is inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. A newspaper reporting in the early part of the 20th century, when few women were reporting on politics and city hall, her work influenced law and policy.
1996— WPCI re-establishes its On the Job with a Media Pro program, originally started in the late 1970s, in which members shared their jobs with a high school student for a couple of hours a day. It was the brainchild if then-president Childers (1976-79).
2001 — Julie V. Strauss, founding member of WPCI, is inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. She wrote the column, “The Ideas of a Plain Country Woman,” for the Ladies Home Journal from 1905 until her death in 1918.
2001 — WPCI hosts its third NFPW convention in Indianapolis, interrupted by Sept. 11 tragedy at the Twin Towers. With planes grounded, many delegates had trouble getting to Indianapolis if they got there at all. Jackie Davis was convention chairperson.
2003 — Donna Douglas Penticuff is the third WPCI delegate to be elected president of NFPW.
2006 — WPCI nominee Vivian Sade is named runner up in the NFPW Communicator of Achievement competition.
2010 — WPCI nominee Elizabeth Granger is named runner up in the NFPW Communicator of Achievement competition.
2011 — WPCI begins a literacy project by collecting books and stuffed animals for children in Indiana homeless and abused women shelters.
2012 — Kate Milner Rabb, longtime Indianapolis Star columnist in the early half of 20th century and past president of WPCI, is inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. WPCI’s highest award is named for her.
2013 — WPCI turns 100 on Feb. 18.
More:
- Read a press release about the 100th anniversary.
- See the Indiana proclamation for Woman’s Press Club of Indiana Day.
- See the City of Indianapolis proclamation for Woman’s Press Club of Indiana Day.
- Learn more about members’ accomplishments through the years.
- See a slideshow from the centennial banquet.
- Check out the club’s Facebook page to see photos by member Kendal Miller.