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UPA'S NATIONAL PARTICIPATION mingle more together and know more and more of each other." It would be more than fifty years before Utah Press Association undertook an encore. The next national newspaper convention to come to Salt Lake City was in 1949. Some 500 delegates and families of National Editorial Association spent four days, from Saturday, June 4th to Tuesday, June 7th in and around Utah's capital city. When the conclave ended, the Salt Lake Tribune reported: "The visiting editors and publishers were unrestrained in their praise of Salt Lake City, the Utah State Press Association and cooperating business firms for what they declared was one of the most enjoyable conventions in the organization's history." A. W. (Al) Epperson, who while USPA president in 1945 had tendered an invitation to NEA to visit Utah, was convention chairman. The conclave was originally scheduled for 1950, but the date was changed so that the national group could maintain its system of alternating its meetings between eastern and western United States. Hal MacKnight, publisher of the Price Sun-Advocate, was quoted in USPA's magazine several years later, to wit: "My greatest thrill came as president of the Utah State Press Association in 1949, when the National Editorial Association held its convention in Utah." The '49 conclave was a remarkable example of state and local cooperation with the press. Kennecott Copper transported conventioneers to its Bingham Canyon mine, then to Saltair, the Great Salt Lake resort, where a beach party was held. Kennecott also sponsored an evening banquet for NEAers. Western Newspaper Union, forerunner of today's Western Paper Company, bused delegates up Big Cottonwood Canyon to Brighton for a luncheon and an opportunity to ride the ski lifts. United States Steel took the convention group on a tour of its plant at Geneva. ZCMI conducted a fashion show for wives and daughters of convention delegates and spiced the afternoon with a personal appearance of Virginia Mayo, then a top Hollywood star and 375 |
