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Great American Outdoor Trails Radio Magazine Lands First-Place Award in 2008 Texas Outdoor Writers Association Annual Excellence In Crafts Competition
3/5/08
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS - Great American Outdoor Trails Radio Magazine was judged the number-one radio program in Texas by the Texas Outdoor Writers Association (TOWA) during the group's 50th annual convention this past weekend in College Station. The TOWA's annual Excellence In Crafts competition recognizes outstanding print, broadcast and Internet features and programs, and is assessed every year by an impartial panel of judges chosen by the organization.
GAOT host and creator Jim Ferguson's "Watch What You Hear" format was a significant standout during the TOWA awards banquet, held the evening of Saturday, March 1 at the Plaza Hotel and Suites. Gulf Coast Editor Larry Bozka submitted a travel segment entitled "Way Up North" to garner a First-Place award in the TOWA EIC competition's Radio category. In honor of the association's 50th anniversary, first-place winners took home not only cash prizes, but also specially-produced, custom-engraved crystal plaques acknowledging their achievements.
A lavishly-illustrated podcast that Bozka compiled while on a cruise of Alaska's "Inside Passage" in June of 2007 with his wife and business partner, Liz, "Way Up North" consisted of an 11-minute interview between Ferguson and Bozka that profiled a three-destination Alaskan cruise aboard the Princess Cruise Lines ship Sun Princess. Featuring everything from the lush rainforest terrain of Ketchikan to the massive aquamarine ice floes of the Tracy Arm and sweeping glacial vistas of Skagway, the trip's northernmost destination, the segment contained a total of 77 images.
"Jim Ferguson deserves this recognition as much as anyone," Bozka told the group in accepting the award. "It was his determination and foresight that made Great American Outdoor Trails the fascinatingly unique program that it is. Jim is an unbelievably hard-working guy, and his innovative implementation of the illustrated podcast format represents a bona fide leading-edge development in the constantly-evolving universe of outdoor communication."
The Bozka Outdoor Media website, CoastalAnglers.com, also received first-place EIC Website category recognition during the two-hour-long awards ceremony. With a focus on coastal fishing but nonetheless incorporating a broad-reaching format that allows the inclusion of most everything outdoors, CoastalAnglers.com features a diverse combination of blog-style news, editorial opinion writing, feature coverage and award-winning photography along with pre-formatted tide table projections and an extensive photo gallery.
Saturday night was an extra-special occasion for the 30-year veteran of outdoor writing, photography, publishing and broadcasting, as Bozka was also presented the prestigious L.A. Wilke Lifetime Achievement Award, TOWA's highest honor. Houston Chronicle outdoor writer and broadcaster Doug Pike, who won the most recent L.A. Wilke Award in 2005, made the announcement before a packed house at the Saturday night awards banquet.
"It was," Bozka says, "an incredibly special evening. Liz, who works so hard with me on virtually every project I undertake, along with a large group of peers and friends from throughout the outdoor industry, was there to see it all happen. Altogether," he adds, "it was an incredibly humbling experience, one that I will never forget. It's absolutely wonderful to be honored by such honorable people, a career-long collection of friends and associates whom I so deeply respect."
Aside from his position with Great American Outdoor Trails, Bozka is Director of Marketing and Public Relations for Lonoke, Arkansas-based I.F. Anderson Farms, the world's largest producer of shiner minnows as well as the developer and producer of the specially-bred, Federal Express-shipped Black Salty® live baitfish.
Through Bozka Outdoor Media/CoastalAnglers.com, Bozka writes for a broad variety of outdoor-oriented publications. He is Saltwater Editor of Texas Sporting Journal magazine, Contributing Writer for Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine and a regular contributor to the Coastal Conservation Association's TIDE Magazine as well as a number of other fishing and hunting publications.
Larry and Liz Bozka live in Seabrook, Texas, less than a mile from the western shoreline of Upper Galveston Bay. For more information contact Jim Ferguson 785-846-7844
Media Contact:
Jim Ferguson (785) 846-7844 gaot@st-tel.net
3/5/08
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS - Great American Outdoor Trails Radio Magazine was judged the number-one radio program in Texas by the Texas Outdoor Writers Association (TOWA) during the group's 50th annual convention this past weekend in College Station. The TOWA's annual Excellence In Crafts competition recognizes outstanding print, broadcast and Internet features and programs, and is assessed every year by an impartial panel of judges chosen by the organization.
GAOT host and creator Jim Ferguson's "Watch What You Hear" format was a significant standout during the TOWA awards banquet, held the evening of Saturday, March 1 at the Plaza Hotel and Suites. Gulf Coast Editor Larry Bozka submitted a travel segment entitled "Way Up North" to garner a First-Place award in the TOWA EIC competition's Radio category. In honor of the association's 50th anniversary, first-place winners took home not only cash prizes, but also specially-produced, custom-engraved crystal plaques acknowledging their achievements.
A lavishly-illustrated podcast that Bozka compiled while on a cruise of Alaska's "Inside Passage" in June of 2007 with his wife and business partner, Liz, "Way Up North" consisted of an 11-minute interview between Ferguson and Bozka that profiled a three-destination Alaskan cruise aboard the Princess Cruise Lines ship Sun Princess. Featuring everything from the lush rainforest terrain of Ketchikan to the massive aquamarine ice floes of the Tracy Arm and sweeping glacial vistas of Skagway, the trip's northernmost destination, the segment contained a total of 77 images.
"Jim Ferguson deserves this recognition as much as anyone," Bozka told the group in accepting the award. "It was his determination and foresight that made Great American Outdoor Trails the fascinatingly unique program that it is. Jim is an unbelievably hard-working guy, and his innovative implementation of the illustrated podcast format represents a bona fide leading-edge development in the constantly-evolving universe of outdoor communication."
The Bozka Outdoor Media website, CoastalAnglers.com, also received first-place EIC Website category recognition during the two-hour-long awards ceremony. With a focus on coastal fishing but nonetheless incorporating a broad-reaching format that allows the inclusion of most everything outdoors, CoastalAnglers.com features a diverse combination of blog-style news, editorial opinion writing, feature coverage and award-winning photography along with pre-formatted tide table projections and an extensive photo gallery.
Saturday night was an extra-special occasion for the 30-year veteran of outdoor writing, photography, publishing and broadcasting, as Bozka was also presented the prestigious L.A. Wilke Lifetime Achievement Award, TOWA's highest honor. Houston Chronicle outdoor writer and broadcaster Doug Pike, who won the most recent L.A. Wilke Award in 2005, made the announcement before a packed house at the Saturday night awards banquet.
"It was," Bozka says, "an incredibly special evening. Liz, who works so hard with me on virtually every project I undertake, along with a large group of peers and friends from throughout the outdoor industry, was there to see it all happen. Altogether," he adds, "it was an incredibly humbling experience, one that I will never forget. It's absolutely wonderful to be honored by such honorable people, a career-long collection of friends and associates whom I so deeply respect."
Aside from his position with Great American Outdoor Trails, Bozka is Director of Marketing and Public Relations for Lonoke, Arkansas-based I.F. Anderson Farms, the world's largest producer of shiner minnows as well as the developer and producer of the specially-bred, Federal Express-shipped Black Salty® live baitfish.
Through Bozka Outdoor Media/CoastalAnglers.com, Bozka writes for a broad variety of outdoor-oriented publications. He is Saltwater Editor of Texas Sporting Journal magazine, Contributing Writer for Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine and a regular contributor to the Coastal Conservation Association's TIDE Magazine as well as a number of other fishing and hunting publications.
Larry and Liz Bozka live in Seabrook, Texas, less than a mile from the western shoreline of Upper Galveston Bay. For more information contact Jim Ferguson 785-846-7844
Media Contact:
Jim Ferguson (785) 846-7844 gaot@st-tel.net
