An Article on Affording Drinking Water

Press Release
10/15/02

Officials at the National Rural Water Association are pleased to announce that Kansas Rural Water Association received the Website of the Year & Newsletter of the Year Awards at the NRWA’s Annual Leadership Conference held in Spokane, Washington October 6-9. Pat Shaffer and Elmer Ronnebaum received the awards on behalf of KRWA.

Websites help build the public and professional image of associations. They are a great way to share the service and benefits of these association’s to a wider audience while enhancing communications with targeted membership. Additionally, they fill a critical need for utility membership networking and provide information 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Sites are judged on originality, ease of use, timeliness of updates, information provided, overall design and appearance.

State Association newsletters can also be a valuable tool for keeping members current regarding individual programs and areas of interest. The criteria for selection is overall visual appeal, content, ease of readability, promotion of rural water, and input from program personnel.

Kansas Rural Water Association was selected as this year’s winner for both awards from 47 other state associations.

The NRWA Awards in Excellence program was established to recognize the outstanding efforts of the Member State Affiliates, their staff, and special members of the rural water industry.

The National Rural Water Association is a non-profit federation of State Rural Water Associations. Its mission: to provide state associations with support services to meet the needs of their membership.

Historically, NRWA’s state associations have trained over 55,000 water and wastewater system personnel a year for two decades and provided over 60,000 on-site technical assistance visits a year. Over 7,000 ground water protection plans have been adopted by local communities.

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Pat Shaffer & Elmer Ronnebaum