The Cowboy
Cathode
The Official Newletter of the Wyoming Society of Radiologic
Technologists
Editor's Note: This version is modified from
the edition mailed to our membership because of
updated or duplicate information that may be found elsewhere on our web site.
Autumn 1997
WSRT Holds Annual Fall Conference
Douglas, WY - The Wyoming Society of Radiologic Technologists held their annual educational conference and business meeting September 18 - 20, 1997. Overall, the meeting is considered a great success this year. While attendance was down a little, which was somewhat to be expected with the onslaught of other CE’s being made available through many channels, membership in our society has increased to an all time high of over 200 registered members of which well over half are R.T.’s.
The new board of directors was announced at Saturday’s General Meeting. Mike Lewis will serve as President, Linda Holden as President-Elect (both from Cheyenne), Becky Childers of Casper will serve as Vice-President, Starla Mason of Cheyenne will be Secretary and Ken Helfrick of Cody will remain as Treasurer for the second half of his term in office. Jeff Tammen of Cheyenne is now the Immediate Past President and Barb Jordan from Wheatland will retain her position as a non-voting board member of the WSRT as she is the RT member of the State Board of Radiologic Technologist Examiners.
Lectures were offered both Friday and Saturday with many local speakers from Wyoming speaking on a diverse amount of subjects. Michael Ward, Ph.D, RT, FASRT, Vice President of the ASRT was in attendance for the entire conference and we sincerely appreciated him being here.
Linda Holden won the Mallinckrodt award this year and although she expressed that she really hadn’t done much to deserve the award this past year, it was truly a testament as to how much the technologists around the state of Wyoming love her. She is an asset to not only Wyoming, but the ASRT as well. Linda will be attending next year’s annual ASRT conference in Houston with President Mike Lewis as delegates from Wyoming.
A special hat’s off to Sharon Mathews for a job well done as the Conference Chairperson. Next year’s conference will be held in Thermopolis Wyoming. More details to follow.
President’s Message
Greetings to all of you and I am pleased to have the opportunity to serve you as your president. I am excited about this coming year and various projects in the works for you and the WSRT. Additionally, I think that we have an outstanding board of directors for this coming year as well. I couldn’t have asked for a better group. The listing of the new board members and committee chairs can be found elsewhere in the web site.
Kristy Nystrom will be my contact person for central Wyoming and I will be relying on her quite a bit this year to keep the lines of communication open to our members in that general region. I value Kristy’s opinions and trust her insight and I want any and all of you to feel free to contact her with any comments or concerns should you not feel comfortable in contacting me directly, although I hope that should not be the case. In as far as that goes though, I trust all of the members of this board implicitly and hope that you will free to contact any one of us about anything that you want to.
Being the President of the Society and the editor of the Cowboy Cathode has me in a rather unique position in that basically anything that I write in the newsletter is my message to you. So, please pardon me if I write something in this section that you read more about in another section as well. I don’t mean it to be redundant.
National Radiology Technology Week was celebrated November 2 - 8 this year. Several projects were done around the state by different hospitals and clinics. Let us know what you did!
I am announcing my new membership incentive program. If you, as a member of the WSRT sign up a new member, we will discount your next membership by 25%. Get two people to join and you’ll save 50%. It gets better though; sign up five new members and we will give you your next membership absolutely free.
Spring Conference - The WSRT general membership approved doing the compressed video this year. I feel this is really the best option as the cost is nominal and it is available almost anywhere in the state. We will try to select the initial sites as carefully as we can and we can add additional sites if warranted and enough interest in shown. Presenting the conference for free will not be possible this year, but we are fairly confident that we can present it to you at a very reasonable price.
The WSRT has a new web site on the Internet. It can be found at http://www.WSRT.ORG. For those of you with Internet access, we hope to provide you with an informative site that you can tune in to for information and assistance. You can even join or renew your membership at the site or check your status if you wish. E-mail addresses for various board members will be available there as well. If you have an idea for the site that you would like to see, write to me and let me know. I will continually be developing the site and need your input.
Upcoming Conference News
We will be conducting the 1998 Spring Conference on March 28, 1997. So far the sites being looked at are Gillette, Evanston, Cheyenne, Casper and Powell. The cost will be $25 person. Check our web site for further information and let us know if you have any questions.
Plans for next year’s annual conference are already underway. Conference will be held in Thermopolis, WY September 17 - 19, 1998. The word is that evening classes are being considered with an all you can eat spaghetti buffet dinner. We will feed your brain as well as your tummy! Linda Holden tells me that Phil Ballinger (Merrill’s Atlas) is confirmed for speaking on positioning and skills for technologists who work with with students. The WSRT welcomes Phil in coming here once again!
You can also find new about the Annual Conference at our web site. I will try to update it as new information becomes available.
Project Brings Speakers to Conference
The WSRT wishes to thank Lyndall Calendar for her donation of a water-color painting and Dr. Steven Holst for his donation of Rockies tickets for a give-away fund-raiser that raised enough money for us to bring a speaker to our last annual conference in Douglas. A thanks to Jerry Lucas for his organization of the fund raiser. Spirit such as his helps all of us in the WSRT!
The WSRT goes Surfing!
The Wyoming Society of Radiologic Technologists recently stepped into the future by creating and maintaining our own WEB site on the Internet. Although still in its infancy, I believe that it will continue to grow over the next few months and hopefully well into the future.
I feel that the time has come for us to take a step forward by going on-line. Wyoming is a large state geographically, but we are the second lowest in the number of registered technologists. Communication can be tough and expensive in rural areas such as ours and we needed to consider alternative means of getting information to our membership. The cost of the site for one year is about the same as two issues of the Cowboy Cathode.
I also consider it a great way to get our message out to the public as well. In fitting with overall objectives of acute public awareness of the value of Registered Technologists in the health-care community, we hope that many people will find our site and learn a little bit more about what it means to have fully qualified and educated individuals doing their exams in the radiology departments in hospitals and clinics all over the world.
As for the future of the site, it primarily exists for our members as an easy way for you to get information about a variety of things and to write to us on the WSRT Board. There are links to the ASRT and ARRT as well and will have more to other sites as time goes on. Currently, the students at LCCC in Cheyenne have an interesting site which I will link to as well. I am hoping that this will take off all over the state.
There is an interactive application to join the WSRT on-line. Our Board has opted to set up our Executive Secretary on-line as well and this should be an easy and very quick way for the members to send and receive information as opposed to the cost of a long distance phone call to her or the pain of sending and receiving that same information by regular mail. My goal is to also have all of our Board members on-line before too long as well as my Committee Chairs.
I invite anyone to visit the site and leave an e-mail for the WSRT. Currently, most of it gets routed to me but their are a few other e-mail addresses posted as well. You can find the site at:
Western States Caucus
The Western States Caucus will be meeting February 7, 1998 in Las Vegas, NV. The Western States Caucus was originally formed in order to give the western states a forum to conduct meetings and educate ASRT affiliate and regional delegates.
The meeting begins with a discussion of agenda items including ASRT organization and operation and issues surrounding the profession. Participants may then break into smaller groups to draft resolutions to the House of Delegates or other letters as appropriate.
The Caucus provides a means for persons in the western US to be able to meet the current day demands of being well informed and aquainted with not only the ASRT but what is happening in the Radiologic Technology profession everywhere. I encourage you to try an participate if possible. Applications are available on request or for more information you can call 801-626-7966 or e-mail to rwalker@weber.edu.
Committees
I am looking for additional people to serve on committees this year. In particular, I am looking for people to help out on Ways & Means and Public Relations committees as well as any other committees that you may be interested in. A complete description of each committee and its function is in the packet that each of you was sent by Linda Holden. My interest is in making sure that various corners of the state have some input in this year’s activities and that everything is not centered in Cheyenne. Please contact me ASAP if you are interested at president@wsrt.org.
ASRT BOARD SELECTS NEW CEO
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - After an eight-month nationwide search, the ASRT Board of Directors has selected Lynn May, M.A., CAE, as its new chief executive officer, effective November 1.
Board Chairman Wanda Hancock, M.H.S.A., R.T.(R)(T), FASRT, announced the decision, which followed final interviews by the full Board with the top candidates recommended by the CEO Selection Committee. Serving on the committee were Kelly Thomalla, B.S., R.T.(R)(M), RDMS, FASRT; Ms. Hancock; Eileen Ahlswede, R.T.(R); Michael DelVecchio, B.S., R.T.(R); and ASRT Interim CEO Joan Parsons.
"Lynn comes to us with a 22-year track record of association management, government relations, fund-raising, marketing and public health care policy, all of which will come into play as ASRT begins its pursuit of federal minimum standards for the education and certification of radiologic technologists." Ms. Hancock said.
Mr. May currently serves as executive vice president of the American Psychiatric Foundation and director of marketing and resource development for the 40,000-member American Psychiatric Association in Washington, D.C. "I'm very pleased and excited about this opportunity to join a great organization," he said.
Mr. May's career includes association and federal government experience. He was executive vice president and CEO of the American College of Cardiology, executive vice president of the American Academy of Physician Assistants and administrator for legislative programs for the American Health Care Association.
During his eight-year tenure with the AAPA, he spearheaded successful legislative and regulatory initiatives to obtain Medicare coverage for physician assistant services, conducted a national public relations campaign to enhance the image of physician assistants and launched a number of successful nondues income initiatives involving publications, databases and list sales.
He managed press, media and consumer relations for the Health Care Financing Administration and served as public relations advisor to the HCFA administrator and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He was associate director of the White House Domestic Council and a special assistant for the Department of Labor.
Mr. May holds the CAE credential, which stands for "certified association executive" and marks completion of a comprehensive examination and continuing education program that covers all aspects of association management. He is a long-time member of the American Society of Association Executives and frequent lecturer at ASAE national meetings. He also is a widely published author of articles on association management.
He is a board member for several civic organizations in northern Virginia and chairman of the advisory board for Credential Information Services Inc., a business that provides electronic data about physicians to hospitals, managed care firms and other employers.
Mr. May holds a master of arts degree in history from the University of California at Los Angeles, and a bachelor of arts in history from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. From 1964 to 1968, he was an Air Force officer, ending service as a captain decorated for action in Vietnam.
If you have any contributions to the Cowboy
Cathode please send them to cowboycathode@wsrt.org
or mail them to 2615 East 18th Street, Cheyenne, WY., 82001