SANTA MONICA, CA: The City of Santa Monica awarded a $150,000 contract recently to Southard Communications to create an integrated PR campaign that will raise public awareness about the city's smoking restrictions.

LYNNWOOD, WA: The Washington Dairy Products Commission tapped Waggener Edstrom Worldwide for a multi-year consumer campaign that will educate state residents about the health benefits of dairy products and the economic role of dairy farms.

WASHINGTON: The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) launched a new PR and advertising campaign to battle what it calls "myths" and "inaccuracies" in the media about the use of high fructose corn syrup (HRCS) in foods.

CHICAGO: Nature's Variety, a pet food manufacturer based in Lincoln, NE, tapped Wheatley & Timmons to serve as its first AOR, expanding on its prior relationship.

SAN FRANCISCO: The University of California, San Francisco, and YouTube launched a collaborative online campaign on June 16 to help spread awareness about dementia.

STRATHAM, NH: Timberland partnered with social networking site Changents to launch a new forum for environmental activists and further its CSR goals.

Few recent events have generated such an outpouring of respect as the shocking death of Meet the Press host and NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert from a heart attack on June 13.

Diane Gage Lofgren joined Kaiser Permanente's communications team in 2006, a year that saw the healthcare provider in the news quite a bit. Its kidney transplant center in San Francisco was under fire for mismanagement. The company was also under scrutiny for possible patient dumping in LA. The attention was nearly always handled in a reactive way. But Lofgren, no stranger to healthcare PR, sought to add a big-picture perspective.

NEW YORK: The tomato industry concentrated its outreach efforts on buyers to bolster the message that some tomatoes are safe to eat, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) try to identify the variety or region of tomatoes that triggered the salmonella outbreak in recent weeks.

Jeanine Detz turned a combined interest in fitness and journalism into a senior editor position at Shape. After publishing a book, "Ultimate Core Ball Workout," in 2005 and freelancing for a number of American Media publications, Detz joined the Shape staff as a senior editor focusing on fitness.