Tentative Faculty

Our workshop facilitators are among the best in the business. They have taught students and advisers at every level.

Writing and Theme
Frank Ragulsky is Director of Student Media at Oregon State University where he has served as the yearbook adviser for the award-winning Beaver Yearbook for 26 years. Prior to that he was at Southern Methodist University, Oklahoma State University and St. Bonaventure University. In all, he has been the yearbook adviser for 35 yearbook staffs. Ragulsky teaches news writing and leads summer leadership workshops for high school and college newspaper and yearbook staffs. He has been a member of College Media Advisers for 38 years and has served as president of the Western Association of University Publications Managers. He is the executive director of Northwest Scholastic Press, a statewide high school press organization in Oregon.

Basic Design and Layout Development
Tonya Danos is the journalism adviser at Catholic High School in New Iberia, LA where she advises the school’s student publications. She has previous journalism advising experience as the Director of Student Publications at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, LA where she advised the student newspaper and yearbook for three years. In addition, Tonya also advised the high school newspaper and yearbook at Terrebonne High School in Houma, LA for six years. Her expertise includes layout and design, staff management and motivation and feature writing.

Photography
Randy Pfizenmaier is a professional photographer who was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, IL and currently lives in Fort Collins, CO. From advertising to editorial, his assignments have taken him many places throughout the US, Mexico and the Caribbean for clients such as: Bolle sunglasses, Scuba Schools Int., Hewlett Packard, Blue Ray disc and Great West Life Insurance. His images can be seen in a variety of places from print ads, brochures and packaging to corporate annual reports. Randy's love of photography and people often stretches beyond his commissioned work to include personal projects such as a recent series of images he produced documenting people under the care of a local hospice organization.

Effective Student Leadership and Management
Molly Pavlechko is the Adviser of the L’Agenda yearbook staff at Bucknell University. At Bucknell, she completed the College Student Personnel program to earn a Master of Science Degree in Education and was invited to join Kappa Delta Pi, an international honor society. Molly is also the owner and CEO of Type A Design, a graphic design firm that specializes in the training and development of college yearbook personnel. She speaks at workshops and seminars on topics such as ethical decision making, time management, generational characteristics, management and leadership development.  Molly is the proud recipient of the 2007 CMA Honor Roll Adviser Award.

Advanced Design
Bradley Wilson is the coordinator for student media advising at North Carolina State University where he advises the daily newspaper, the radio station, a weekly newspaper, a literary magazine, an online magazine and the yearbook. He is a frequent speaker at workshops worldwide on topics ranging from the ethics of digital photography to publications design. He is the editor of the publications for the national Journalism Education Association and active in local and regional associations to improve the quality of journalism education. Among other awards, he has received the Pioneer Award from the National Scholastic Press Association and the Carl Towley Award from the Journalism Education Association, which is its highest honor.

Cover Designer
Sebastian Chiri is a graphic designer and fine artist who does 8-10 major national yearbook workshops each year and also freelances directly with schools. For over seven years, he worked as a cover artist/graphic designer, at the Taylor Publishing plant in Dallas. His duties there included designing covers for visiting students and staff, doing cover designs for Taylor ‘standard designs’ every year and training new cover artists. He is also a fine artist with gallery representation in San Francisco and Dallas, a fine arts studio in San Jose, Calif., and a home studio in Coppell, Texas. His web gallery is at www.gallerysebastian.com.

Technology
Mike Richman is a New York-based Senior Solutions Engineer for Adobe Systems. An Adobe-Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign, Acrobat, Illustrator and Photoshop, he works primarily with Adobe’s major publishing accounts across the United States. He is the co-author, along with Adam Pratt, of The Adobe InCopy CS2 Book, from Adobe Press. Prior to joining Adobe in 2000, Mike freelanced as an editorial photographer, sold and serviced custom imaging workstations, and worked as a corporate trainer specializing in electronic prepress.