1

Running head: Pioneer of Public Relation Field

The First Lady of Public Relations

Betsy Ann Plank is not the first woman to practice in the field of public relations, but she

has achieved many firsts that no female prior to her could obtain in her particular field of study.

She believes that “a strong foundation in education is fundamental to a profession and defines

it,” thus Plank devoted her entire career to advance the foundation of the field. She was a well

respected public relations expert who achieved many goals through hard work and dedication in

what seemed to be not just her job, but her passion.

Betsy Plank was born on April 3, 1924 in Alabama. Her education was the starting point

for her achievements later on in life. Betsy was an outstanding woman who graduated high

school at the age of sixteen and from University of Alabama when she was only twenty. She

briefly worked with a radio station in Pittsburgh before starting working with Duffy Swartz in a

local advertising agency in 1947. Duffy Swartz was the Midwest director of the Advertising

Council, who also mentored and trained Betsy. Her first experience in the public relations field

started with the project of the local Red Cross campaign, under the guidance of Swartz. Swartz,

like Plank, was also an outstanding female in the field because she “was an executive at a time

when very few women claimed that kind of position” (Arthur W. Page). Plank works with

Swartz for twenty years before leaving to join Edelman.

Betsy Plank started working for Daniel Edelman in 1960, and stayed with his agency for

thirteen years in Chicago. Her years of working under Daniel Edelman were very interesting,

because “Dan Edelman was a very exciting and demanding and brilliant professional” (Arthur

W. Page). Like Swartz, Betsy Plank started working her way up to higher position: she became

executive vice president for Edelman’s public relations agency. She stayed with him for two
 2
Running head: Pioneer of Public Relation Field

decades before joining AT&T for challenging herself in 1973. While working with Edelman, she

also got involved with the Publicity Club of Chicago, a club served as a network to connect PR

practitioners of Chicago area. Betsy became the first female president elected for the Club. In the

same year, people also elected her as the president of the PRSA, a community which connect PR

students and professionals together.

Paul Lund, then vice president for AT&T, invited her to come over and work on the Bell

project. She shared the reasons for her transfer, “I decided to jump ship from the agency world to

the corporate world and come full circle and experience both fields” (Arthur W. Page). She soon

reached for the top, by becoming director of public relations planning at AT&T. However,

AT&T was not her last stop. She wanted to challenge herself further so she decided to work for

Illinois Bell for seventeen years.

Betsy “helped shape and articulate the company’s response to the divestiture of the Bell

System – what she considered the biggest challenges in her career” (Heath 652). The breaking

down of the Bell system was a major event in the 70s and 80s. Betsy and her team handled the

case without a single misstep. With her success, she became the first woman to be the head of an

Illinois Bell division. In 1990, Betsy Plank retired from her job at Illinois Bell but she was still

professionally involved with its affairs.

One of the most famous contributions to the education of public relations by Betsy Ann

Plank is her involvement with the PRSA and PRSSA. The founding of PRSA and later PRSSA

marked a milestone for Betsy Ann Plank, as she called “the beginning of a lifetime love affair

with students” (Lattimore et al 40). These organizations were created to connect the students

who were interested in the field with the professionals to help them develop and grow. In 1981,
 3
Running head: Pioneer of Public Relation Field

she founded the Friends of PRSSA (now called Champions of PRSSA). This was specifically for

PR students to get connected with each other through competitions funded by PRSA. Betsy

advanced the education of public relations even more with her involvement in the Public

Relations Education Commission. Its goal was to help develop a guidelines for an undergraduate

public relations curriculum, serving on accrediting teams at several universities and speaking to

numerous student groups and public relations classes to enhance education in the field” (SPRF).

A scholarship endowment fund was named after Betsy by the PRSA Foundation in 1989.

Afterwards, the Betsy Plank Endowment has become available to support and aid financially for

public relations students in more than forty colleges in the United States. PRSA's Certification in

Education for Public Relations (CEPR), a voluntary evaluation curriculum for PR programs

international was also founded and developed by Betsy Plank. Females were also one of her

concern while she was working. She co-founded an organization that was dedicated to female PR

practitioners in Chicago area to help them find jobs called the Chicago Network.

She was often called the first lady of public relations not only because she was the first

woman to be the president of four public relations clubs but also partly due to many “first”

awards that she has achieved. Betsy Plank was the first woman elected as Professional of the

Year in1979 by the readers of Public Relation News, first female recipient of the Institute for

Public Relations' Alexander Hamilton Award in 2002, and first contributor to receive the David

W. Ferguson Award for her contributions in public relations education. The First Decade Award

was given to Betsy for her involvement and contributions to the Chicago Network community.

Betsy Ann Plank was the only person in the history of public relations field that were honored

with three top awards of the PRSA: the Gold Anvil in 1997 for her lifetime accomplishment, the

Lund Award for all of her involvements in developing civic and community services, and the
 4
Running head: Pioneer of Public Relation Field

Patrick Jackson Award in 2001 for her enormous contributions to PRSA. In 2000, she was

honored with the Distinguished Service Award by the Arthur W. Page Society.

Since Betsy Ann Plank stepped into the field and started working her way up, she never

ceased to amaze people. Public relation in the 1960s was still a male-dominated profession and it

was not at its peak but Betsy was able to revive it and made it bloom. With her contributions to

the field and public education, many people were able to achieve their dreams in their chosen

fields. PRSA and PRSSA have become world biggest associations to connect and help public

relation students to connect with other professionals. She provided her teaching and guidelines to

countless PR professionals and students. She spent many hours devoting to teaching, talking to

young students and young professionals; treating them like her own children. Not only that Betsy

Plank became a pioneer and advocate for public relations students, but also the women of the

field. She proved that women can achieve greatness even if public relation used to be male-

dominated field. Betsy’s the Chicago Network association helps empowering woman to increase

their impacts on community as well as society. She has been working tirelessly to make big

improvements for the industry. People started to focus more on giving and getting professional

education about the public relation industry after many of her dedications to empower and

strengthen it to how it has developed today.

Her concentrations on others “led her to become the most individually-recognized

woman in the industry, a testament to the value of selflessness in professionalism” (The Plank

Center). She was married to director Sherman V. Rosenfield but has no biological children;

instead she treated all the fellow students of PRSSA as her own child. May 2010 marked a sad

moment for the public relations industry as Betsy Ann Plank passed away from an illness.
 5
Running head: Pioneer of Public Relation Field

Despite the fact that she has passed away, she still leaves a legacy behind that continue to inspire

many young public relation students and professionals today.

 6
Running head: Pioneer of Public Relation Field

References

Betsy Plank. (n.d.). Retrieved from the Plank Center Website September 9, 2015:

http://plankcenter.ua.edu/

Betsy Plank (interviewee). Retrieved from the Arthur W. Page Center Website:

http://comm.psu.edu/page-center/oral-histories/betsy-plank

Dan, L., Otis, B., Suzette T., H., & Elizabeth L., T. (2012). The History of Public Relations. In

Public Relations: The Profession and the Practice (4th ed., pp. 40-41). New York, New

York: McGraw-Hill.

In memoriam: Betsy Plank, APR, Fellow PRSA, 86. (2010, May 23). Retrieved September 9,

2015.

Plank, Betsy. (2013). In R. Heath (Ed.), Encyclopedia of public relations (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp.

652-653). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

 7
Running head: Pioneer of Public Relation Field