Choose Burkett or Fiske for secretary.

NCEW members will choose either Lynnell Burkett or Fred Fiske as the organization's new secretary during the convention in Madison. As secretary, the winner moves into rotation to become treasurer, vice president, and president of NCEW.

Lynnell J. Burkett has practiced what she used to teach for more than a decade. She became an editorial page editor in 1988 after seven years as chair of San Antonio College's department of journalism/photography.

Burkett joined NCEW shortly after becoming Viewpoint editor and deputy editorial page editor of the San Antonio Express-News. Now editorial page editor, she has won numerous awards for editorial writing.

She became well-known to members as chair of the 1995 annual convention in San Antonio and currently serves as an at-large member of the NCEW board.

A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Burkett holds bachelor of journalism and master of arts in communication degrees. She has been active in minority education and recruitment through founding and directing the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund High School Journalism Workshop for Minorities at San Antonio College and working with the American Society of Newspaper Editors Minority Job Fairs.

Burkett believes NCEW faces two major challenges as it moves into its second 50 years.

"First, NCEW must assure that those who run newspapers - publishers and corporate officers - understand the role of the editorial page as the heart and conscience of the newspaper and a powerful force within its community.

"Second, the organization must assure that the opinion pages reflect the changing face of America, both demographically and technologically. Only if it is able to meet those challenges, and building on the firm base on which it was founded, will the organization and the profession retain their vitality in the 21st century."

She hopes to serve as a leader in moving toward those goals, working with other dedicated members.

Fred Fiske has been editorial page editor of The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y., since 1983, the same year he joined NCEW. He started his journalism career as a reporter and columnist for the Bucks County Courier Times in Pennsylvania 24 years ago and was a news editor in Syracuse before moving to the editorial page.

For the past 10 years, Fiske has taught news reporting and writing at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications.

When he isn't playing piano accompaniment for NCEW warblers at annual conventions, he edits The Masthead, and was midwife for the 50th anniversary edition in 1996. He has served a term on the board of directors, coordinated the first NCEW op-ed seminar in Syracuse in 1990, and joined NCEW's trip to Eastern Europe that year.

Fiske graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor of arts degree and from Columbia School of Journalism with a master of science degree. He sits on the board of Literacy Volunteers and the board of consultants for Syracuse University's Program for the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict.

With one exception, Fiske has attended every NCEW convention since 1983 and thinks the fellowship is one factor that makes NCEW unique.

He cites five goals as leader of NCEW:

1. To be a vigilant steward of NCEW's precious qualities of professional fellowship and support, good humor, and intellectual challenge.

2. To work to keep NCEW solvent and growing.

3. To expand affordable opportunities and benefits of membership.

4. To add diverse voices to the profession and the organization and maintain them.

5. To ensure that the editorial remains a vital element in daily print, broadcast, and electronic journalism.

Fiske supports the organization's NCEW-L online dialogue and its Web site as a means to secure NCEWs berth in cyberspace.