PR team member wins national writing award

Phillip Brown, internal communications manager in the University’s Public Relations Office, recently won a Gold Hermes Award for publication writing for the article “Trailblazers Turn the Tassel.” The feature was published in the second quarter 2014 edition of the UNC Charlotte magazine.

“The public relations team is blessed with several fine writers, who have deep experience in writing news, features and all sorts of other content; Phillip Brown is a first-rate storyteller as well as an exceptional editor,” said John Bland, senior director for public relations and news services. Among his other responsibilities, Brown is the editor of Inside UNC Charlotte and a frequent contributor to the UNC Charlotte magazine.

Hermes Creative Awards are presented by the Association of Marketing and Communications, founded in 1995. The association’s membership consists of numerous professional communicators and organizations involved in print/digital media across the country.

“It’s an honor to be recognized nationally by one’s peers, and I am particularly proud of the piece,” said Brown. “It featured the inaugural graduating class of our Levine Scholars. As it was my story pitch, I worked with Levine Scholars Program officials and the scholars closely, as well as our campus photographer Wade Bruton. The email and in-person interviews took several weeks to coordinate and conduct, and the actual writing and editing required another several days. It was a complex project to manage and complete, but it was a lot of fun, too.”