Top Marketing Professionals Regognized at KAMA Gala
Note: This release was sent from Jim Ragonese, KAMA media relations director.
The Knoxville Chapter of the American Marketing Association (KAMA) recognized some of Knoxville’s top marketing professionals and students at its annual Gala on Friday, April 11 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Knoxville. The event, A Platinum Evening, marked the celebration of the organization’s 20th anniversary.
During the gala, emceed by UT director of broadcasting Bob Kesling, the 2008 Outstanding Marketing Professional of the Year award went to Ed Brantley, vice president and general manager of Citadel Broadcasting. Brantley has a 35-year career in broadcasting and manages radio stations WIVK, WNOX, WNML, WNRX and WOKI.
Under Brantley’s leadership, WIVK has won the Country Music Association’s Station of the Year award in 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2006, the National Association of Broadcasters Station of the Year award in 2003, 2004 and 2006 and the Academy of Country Music’s Station of the Year award in 2002, 2004 and 2006. During Brantley’s tenure, WNOX won the Edward R. Murrow award for overall excellence in 2000. Always community oriented, Brantley founded WIVK’s annual Coats for the Cold campaign and The Dream Connection.
Other marketing professionals recognized during the gala included Billy Rivet, partner at BlueGill Creative, who earned the Locander Award for Outstanding Service to the KAMA chapter, and Amy Styles, marketing manager at Covenant Health, who took home the Volunteer of the Year award. The organization also recognized past presidents of the chapter from each of the past 19 years.
KAMA recognized two University of Tennessee-Knoxville marketing students, Ashley Owen and Karen Key, with the Brantley Scholarship Award. Owen is a senior at UT with a 3.7 grade point average and serves as president of the UT – AMA chapter. Key, a UT junior, has a 3.2 grade point average and comes to Tennessee from Massachusetts, where she earned her Associate’s from Berkshire Community College, in Pittsfield, Mass. Each student was awarded a $4,000 scholarship by KAMA.
The annual awards gala and benefit auction raises money for the Eagle Endowment for Marketing Education. The scholarships awarded by KAMA are made possible through the endowment, which was created by the organization in 1990. The endowment is a permanent fund to provide scholarships for marketing majors at UT-Knoxville who have proven their leadership abilities and commitment to the marketing profession.
The American Marketing Association is the world’s largest and most comprehensive professional society of individual members with an interest in the practice, study and teaching of marketing. KAMA, a nonprofit chapter with a volunteer board of directors, strives to enhance and inform marketing professionals throughout East Tennessee and to educate and inform the general public about the function and purpose of marketing. For more information about KAMA, visit www.kama.org, or call (865) 539-1300.
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