Betsy Plank

Betsy Ann Plank, APR, Fellow PRSA, the "First Lady of Public Relations," was a Southerner whose family migrated north during the Depression. But through a long and illustrious public relations career, she never forgot her Southern roots.

Over her 63­‐year career, Betsy marked numerous "firsts." In 1963, she became the first woman elected president of Chicago's Publicity Club and, in 1973, the first woman elected president of the Public Relations Society of America. She became the only person to serve as president of four Chicago communication organizations: Publicity Club, Welfare Public Relations Forum, Chicago Chapter of PRSA and Public Relations Forum.

Plank is the only person to receive PRSA's three highest honors: the Gold Anvil, outstanding U.S. professional; the Lund Award, exemplary civic and community service; and the Patrick Jackson Award, distinguished service to PRSA. Public Relations News named her its 1979 Professional of the Year and, in 1984, one of the World's 40 Outstanding Public Relations Leaders. The PRSA Educators Academy honored her with the first David W. Ferguson Award for contributions by a practitioner to PR education. In the 2000s, the Arthur W. Page Society recognized her with its Distinguished Service Award and its first Lifetime Achievement Award. She also was the first woman to receive the Institute for Public Relations' Alexander Hamilton Award.

An advocate for PR education, Plank co-chaired the 1987 Commission on Public Relations Education that developed guidelines for the undergraduate PR curriculum. She later helped found PRSA's Certification in Education for Public Relations, a voluntary review program for PR programs worldwide.

Plank's career spanned both agency and corporate practice. She was executive VP and treasurer of the Daniel J. Edelman agency before joining Illinois Bell. There, she became the first woman to head a department, directing urban, community and educational affairs, issues management, and economic development. She retired in 1990 but remained professionally engaged.

Active on the community scene, Plank chaired or served on the boards of several organizations including the United Way and the Girl Scouts, locally and nationally. A co-­founder of The Chicago Network, an organization of leading career women, she received its First Decade Award in 1989.

Plank was elected to the University of Alabama's College of Communication and Information Sciences Hall of Fame in 2000. Later, UA established the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations to develop and recognize outstanding diverse PR leaders, role models and mentors.

Betsy Plank was a graduate of the University of Alabama. She passed away in 2010.