Keith Hejna

John Butler Trio - Ocean

In my final semester at Penn State I took a public relations campaigns class in which I, along with a team of four other individuals, devised, implemented, and measured a PR campaign for the Centre County Special Olympics. I acted as Account Manager, handling the internal and external relations, organization, much of the writing, and several other tasks.

Our goal was to attract more volunteers and we were successful in our efforts. We fostered more media coverage than ever and did some grassroots campaigning by helping jumpstart a Special Olympics Club on campus.

The assignment taught me how to organize, implement, communicate and delegate responsibilities. It was a semester-long project so whenever it was not in the front of my mind, it was in the back of my mind at all times.

Also in my last semester at Penn State, I took a Sports Information class as part of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism curriculum. The course was taught by former Penn State SID, Dave Baker. Our final assignment was a group project. We were instructed to design a media guide. For what team, sport, division or level was up to us. We chose to make ours for Major League Baseball's National League West Division.

Each group member was responsible for one team. With the restricted amount of time and the fact that it was due during finals week, uniformity was difficult to accomplish.

I was directly responsible for the Cover, Table of Contents, the Dodgers section and some editing. The only section not available for download is the Arizona Diamondbacks section, which was completed by another member of the group and delivered to me as a hard copy rather than electronically.

During my final semester at Penn State, one of my several Sports Information assignments included drafting a set of game notes for one of the teams in the Final Four. We could start the assignment the day the four teams made the Final Four and it was due on the day of the games. I picked Kansas because I thought they had the best shot at going all the way. I guess I was right!

In the Fall semester of my senior year, I learned how to conduct a formal public relations/advertising research campaign. For this project, I worked with a group of four other students to answer the question, "Do sexual images in advertising have a quantifiable effect on the purchasing habits of college students?"

We went through all the steps, beginning with an executive summary, literature and media reviews, focus groups and surveys. We took our survey data and entered it into SPSS in order to add quantitative data to the qualitative data we received from our focus groups and media review. We ended with a discussion and conclusion to sum up our findings.

Also included here is the powerpoint we put together that hits the main points of our project.

In my feature writing class, I learned the art of writing a feature story. I have given three samples of my work: a profile, a travel story and a trend story. Each required different kinds of research.

The profile is about a college student named Chase who changes his living habits drastically in order to complete the Chicago Marathon. The research for this story involved several interviews with the subject and his roommates. I also shadowed him for one of his early morning runs.

The research for my travel story came from a journal I kept when I vacationed in Thailand. I also did a lot of research online to get facts, prices and addresses correct. The story explains why Koh Samui is a paradisiacal and inexpensive place to travel.

Finally, I wrote a trend story about the benefits of weight lifting for the elderly. I interviewed an elderly man and woman at my local gym and several experts including professors and the Director of Strength Training and Fitness at Penn State. I also read several studies done on weightlifting by older individuals.