News and notes: Mitchell, Miller leaving GCSAA; STMA show; Super Bowl turf; Royal Blood?

By |  January 27, 2015 0 Comments

Congrats to GCSAA’s longtime employee Penny Mitchell,  who is retiring from the association after nearly 30 years. And congrats to soon-to-be former GCSAA Great Lakes Region field staffer, John Miller, CGCS, who is heading back to the LPGA to work as their staff agronomist.

Whenever I travel for work and the GCSAA comes up, it seems the name people drop on me most often is Penny’s. As the director of GCSAA’s certification program, that makes sense. If Mitchell was an avid golfer, I imagine she could have a pretty good time playing some amazing courses all across the country without reaching for her wallet once, considering the network she’s created over the last few decades working with supers.

It feels like it was 20 years ago that I was out chasing John Miller across the country, writing this story for GCM. But it was just six years ago. Time flies. I’ve left Miller a voicemail to get some comments on his new/old position with the LPGA, stay tuned on this one. In the meantime, GCSAA is advertising his job position here.

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I hit the STMA show in Denver last week, and all I have to say is “wow!” It was only my third STMA show, but it was definitely the busiest one I’ve seen so far. I could hardly get in the SubAir booth… foot traffic in the Jacobsen, Toro and Deere booths were solid… and there seemed to be a steady stream of folks stopping by Stec Equipment’s kegerator.

We’ll have most of our coverage on that show over on our sister site, AthleticTurf.net. We’ll crossover here a little bit as well, including a video we did on Jacobsen’s new Truckster XD that was officially unveiled at the show.

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Speaking of Athletic Turf… we’ve got a cool little story posted over there that details the origins of the turf that we’ll all be watching this Sunday. All the way from Al-a-bama…

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In the “nothing to do with anything” category, for you rockers out there: check out Royal Blood. They’re touring with Foo Fighters this year… I’ve got tickets, and I’m for sure not going to miss their opening set!

 

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About the Author: Seth Jones

Seth Jones, a 25-year veteran of the golf industry media, is Editor-in-Chief of Golfdom magazine and Athletic Turf. A graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Jones began working for Golf Course Management in 1999 as an intern. In his professional career he has won numerous awards, including a Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) first place general feature writing award for his profile of World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman and a TOCA first place photography award for his work covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In his career, Jones has accumulated an impressive list of interviews, including such names as George H.W. Bush, Samuel L. Jackson, Lance Armstrong and Charles Barkley. Jones has also done in-depth interviews with such golfing luminaries as Norman, Gary Player, Nick Price and Lorena Ochoa, to name only a few. Jones is a member of both the Golf Writers Association of America and the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association. Jones can be reached at sjones@northcoastmedia.net.


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