Little did John Reitman know when he left the world of Florida news and sports copy editing in 2004 that a dozen years hence he would receive a national award for journalism excellence in a field foreign to him at the time: plant health.
Reitman was recognized this week by the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) as the 2017 Plant Health Writer of the Year, an annual award sponsored by Bayer. It was presented at the 28th TOCA Annual Meeting at the Saddlebrook Resort outside Tampa, Florida. Reitman is a former TOCA board member, and an alumnus of the University of Kentucky.
Also recognized at the meeting was Dr. Frank Wong of Bayer Crop Science as the 2017 Environmental Communicator of the Year.
Plant health is a big deal in turf management today, supported by corporate and university commitments to research, product development and education. Bridging the gap between research and the end user is the turf media, who are brought together several times annually by TOCA.
In his letter nominating Reitman for the award, TurfNet founder and maestro Peter McCormick said, "When John joined Turnstile Media Group (TurfNet's parent company) in 2004, he had no prior academic training or work experience related to agronomy or other plant sciences. Nonetheless, he dove in, absorbed and mastered the science of managing golf course turf. He maintains a network of connections with university turf professors and researchers, monitors university research publications, attends university turf field days, hosts two dozen university-level webinars each year, shoots and edits video for TurfNetTV and hosts various TurfNetRADIO podcast episodes.
"John has a knack for taking content that can be lengthy and somewhat dry, distilling it down to its essence, and presenting it in a readable fashion that grabs the readers eye and holds their attention," McCormick said. "As if he had nothing else to do, John also orchestrates, manages and presents our TurfNet Superintendent of the Year and Technician of the Year award programs."
Jon Kiger, director of advertising and membership sales for TurfNet and current TOCA board member, added, "We at TurfNet value John as a critical member of our very small team, and appreciate TOCA's recognition of him as Plant Health Writer of the Year for 2017."
"I know many of the past winners (Larry Aylward, Karl Danneberger and Howard Richman of GCM, recently) and have a tremendous amount of respect for them and the work they do. It is humbling to follow them in winning this award," he continued. "I would also like to recognize all of our competitors in the turf media. They keep us on our toes, and hopefully we provide them with some friendly competition, too."