Pennsylvania Newspaper Association honors state Sen. Harold Mowery Jr. for championing open government

State Sen. Harold Mowery Jr. of Cumberland County has been named the recipient of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s Bill Northrop Award for distinguished work supporting open government.

Mowery sponsored Senate Bill 1039, which passed and was signed into law July 15. The law amended the Sunshine Act, requiring the Board of Governors for Dickinson School of Law to meet in public. Dickinson School of Law has been a part of Penn State University since 1999.

The (Carlisle) Sentinel and The (Harrisburg) Patriot-News challenged the Board of Governors’ assertion that such meetings were permitted to be held behind closed doors. As the case proceeded, Senator Mowery introduced the legislation to resolve the issue: Under the Sunshine Act the term Agency "shall include the governing board of any nonprofit corporation which by a mutually binding legal written agreement with a community college or State-aided, State-owned or State-related institution of higher education is granted LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE supervisory or AND advisory powers regarding the degree programs of the institution of higher education."

“We are proud to honor Senator Mowery for his leadership on this issue,” said Berks-Mont Newspapers Publisher Jim Webb, chairman of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s Government Affairs Committee in 2003-2004. “Open meetings of this board serve the law school, its students, the communities of the Carlisle area and State College, as well as all of Pennsylvania.”

Publisher Joseph Sukle Jr. of the Press And Journal in Middletown, will present Sen. Mowery with the Bill Northrop Award during the Annual Banquet at PNA’s 80th Annual Convention Oct. 28 in Pittsburgh.

PNA honored retired Publisher Bill Northrop of the Observer Publishing Co. in Washington by naming its freedom of information award in his honor in 2002. Northrop led a statewide cooperative project that investigated the problems in obtaining public records from local government offices which became the basis of the successful attempt to reform the Right to Know Act. Northrop is a former president of the PNA, and a recipient of the association’s Benjamin Franklin Award for Excellence and Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, a nonprofit trade association, is the official trade organization for all Pennsylvania newspapers and legislative and educational services, and acts as an information clearinghouse. As the parent company, it also operates Mid-Atlantic Newspaper Services Inc. and Newspaper Information Services LLC and is affiliated with the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Foundation.