Announcing Our New PDA Online Newsletter Team

Vol. 2, No. 2--March 19, 2005

Former Vietnam-era Marine Corps spouse, single mom of two, Rita Weinstein takes the reins as our Online Newsletter Editor with nearly 20 years of experience as a communications professional in all media. She helped to organize the communications committee of the Washington State Kucinich for President campaign, and then worked on the national campaign as a Media Consultant. She served as copyeditor of InsideOut, the Kucinich campaign newsletter that was distributed to delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Based in Seattle, Rita is also a contract editor and freelance writer, as well as a published playwright and writer/co-producer of award-winning short film and video. She was a Board member and is currently an active volunteer at Ballard Food Bank. She is also heading a task force to create a shelter for the homeless in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle.

Loretta Cochran, State Editor, is a writer and activist with 25 years of writing experience, including fiction, commercial and technical writing. Since the age of 14, Loretta has fought for animal and human rights and has been a fierce defender of the US Constitution and civil liberties. While living in Portland, Oregon she worked as a stand-up comic and devoted her time to organizing and performing at benefits to protect and increase the basic human rights of Oregonians. She worked with several GLBT groups seeking to defeat ballot measures that would codify discrimination in the Oregon Constitution, performed at benefits for NARAL and helped start the Portland Musician's Emergency Relief Fund with the Cascade Blues Society to ensure that artists and musicians had access to funds for emergency medical care for themselves and their families. She currently lives with her husband in Florida where she works full-time as an eCommerce manager and part-time as a freelance writer.

Alysia Fischer, who has done a great job of creating the newsletter and keeping it current, has now taken on the role of PDA National Policy Director. Many thanks to Alysia for all her hard work.

As PDA continues to expand in membership and the issues of the day become ever more critical, we would like to be able to update the newsletter twice a month. By communicating more effectively and often, we will be better able to share what we're learning and accomplishing. If your group is breaking new ground, has an event to announce, or is creating victories large or small, please contact Rita at rita@pdamerica.org or Loretta at lorettaecom@yahoo.com so that we can post your notice in the next published newsletter. Give us at least a week of lead time for our editorial process to be completed.

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