Celebrating Ferne Bonomi, APR, Fellow PRSA
Ferne Bonomi, APR, Fellow PRSA is a PRSA Iowa member and PR pioneer who recently celebrated her 100th birthday. PRSA Iowa is taking this opportunity to highlight her impressive career and legacy. Read below what fellow PRSA Iowa members have to say about Ferne.
"One of the icons of the public relations profession – in Iowa and nationally - celebrated her 100th birthday last week. I knew Ferne Bonomi by name only when she led the oral review panel when I sat for accreditation in 1988. Her probing questions showed her to be a person of great depth, professionalism, and caring.
Since then, as I continued to look to Ferne as a professional colleague and over time a friend, I’ve seen that Ferne focused not only on practicing public relations at the highest level herself, but what is more significant, she was relentless in her dedication to helping others achieve the highest levels of professional practice.
She took on the coaching of public relations professionals in central Iowa for the accreditation exam as a mission. The coaching materials and the approach Ferne developed were adopted at the national PRSA level when leadership saw the success rate for Iowa candidates passing the APR exam.
It’s worth taking a look at Ferne’s career because she was a woman far ahead of her time.
She was editor and publisher for 18 months until the Silver City Times merged with a neighboring weekly. She continued to work at Iowa newspapers for a decade, earning all of her college expenses through newspaper work with Tama, Iowa City, and Cedar Rapids papers.
During that decade in journalism, Ferne rose from editor of a small weekly newspaper to Sunday editor of a major daily, while earning a B.A. with high honors at the University of Iowa.
For the next 15 years, she applied her strong journalist skills to public relations objectives, primarily in the public interest. As the first public information officer hired by the Governor for the State of Iowa, she initiated a statewide print news service for the Statehouse, produced radio documentaries interpreting the objectives and accomplishments of state tax-supported programs, and wrote and directed a television series interpreting the needs and challenges of inmates of state institutions. In the following years, she fine-tuned her skills, and as a result of the knowledge she gained through public relations accreditation, began to apply that knowledge to public relations planning and projects.
Ferne often held positions that allowed her to work in the public interest. For instance, she served as director of public information and client data for the Mid-Iowa Drug Abuse Council and as communications director for the Iowa Association of School Boards. By the time she led my accreditation panel, she had founded her own consulting firm, Bonomi & Co.
At age 83, when Ferne was honored with the Patrick Jackson Award for Distinguished Service to PRSA, Ferne could easily have rested on a lifetime of accomplishments, but she did not. She continued to be a champion of accreditation nationwide, mentoring candidates, coaching new coaches, and working tirelessly to create and update materials and resources.
Ferne devoted much of her life to lifting up the public relations profession and the people who practice it. She was a fixture at monthly PRSA chapter meetings. She readily shared her wisdom with anyone who asked. As I did. She was amused by the idea that she, as the head of the smallest agency in Iowa, could be helpful to me, the head of what was then the largest public relations agency in Iowa. We had become friends by then, a friendship based on mutual respect, long and interesting lives, and a shared interest in furthering the public relations profession.
I’m happy to lift a Happy 100th Birthday toast to Ferne, my colleague and friend!"
“I have been connected to Ferne and have had the privilege to learn from her leadership since I first joined PRSA in 1992. She had already been well entrenched in our chapter for decades. My greatest memory of Ferne is in 1997 when she dutifully led the accreditation program – she taught our class then and has served as a mentor to generations of aspiring PR professionals. Ferne has guided countless numbers of PR pros working in Iowa and throughout the country – both in her role to shape PRSA’s accreditation program on a national level and as a member of the College of Fellows. In 2019, as a PRSA national board member, I was honored to recognize her for her 50 years as a member of PRSA and her role as being among the first members of the PRSA College of Fellows. Ferne is a valued treasure to PRSA Iowa and I am so happy to celebrate her 100th birthday.”
“Ferne is a legend. We all benefit from her commitment to professional development and the advancement of public relations. As a former accreditation chair, we used many of Ferne’s APR materials to prepare candidates for success, making Iowa one of the leaders nationally in percentage of members holding the credential. I am honored to serve on the Universal Accreditation Board now, ensuring Ferne’s legacy continues.”
"Ferne is a wonderful friend, coach and role-model. I continue to apply and pass along everything I learned from Ferne during my APR studies in 1997, and I’m thankful to have remained friends and benefited from her wisdom (and wit) over the last 25 years. Most amazing is, because of her unique commitment to inspire and teach others, countless PR practitioners around the country enjoy the same knowledge those of us close to her have. But, we are lucky enough to call her friend and celebrate her 100th birthday with her!"
--Jeff White, APR
