Wanda Garner Cash

Wanda Garner Cash (born December 21, 1949 in Laredo, Texas) is an advocate for open government, speaker, commentator, expert witness and media adviser on open government issues to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Early life

Cash was born December 21, 1949 in Laredo, Texas. She attended Ursuline Academy for 11 years and graduated from J.W. Nixon High School in 1967. Cash is known by her nickname, "Fluffy." ^[1][2]

She worked for the Joske's of Texas department store chain as coordinator of radio and television advertising. Cash received a Bachelor of Science in Journalism in 1971 from UT-Austin and attended the UT Graduate School of Education where she was certified as a secondary reading specialist in 1975. She married Richard M. Cash in 1975. They have two sons, Austin Garner Cash and Cooper McNeece Cash.

Career

After returning to college for a graduate degree, she taught high school journalism for seven years at Burbank High School in San Antonio, Texas.

After a being a reporter, editor, publisher and newspaper owner, in 2006 she became a clinical professor and the first Fellow to the S. Griffin Singer Professorship at the University of Texas at Austin. Cash studied under Singer at UT in the late 60s.^[3]

At UT, she is head of the news sequence in the School of Journalism and previously served as the chairman of the executive committee of Texas Student Media.^[4]

Cash teaches reporting at the undergraduate and graduate levels. With co-authors George Sylvie, Dave Garlock and Diana Dawson, she wrote a new textbook for J315 classes that was used for the first time in the fall 2009 semester.

She has served as past president of the Texas Press Association and Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and Texas Associated Press Managing Editors. The Baytown Sun noted her "passionate commitment to journalistic standards" and that she had been a "mentoring editor" for a number of journalists at the paper.^[5] That work included her 2005 leadership of a media coalition that eventually culminated in the 2009 passage of the Free Flow of Information Act, the Texas shield law.^[6]

In April 2006, the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors association honored Cash with the Jack Douglas Award for outstanding service to journalism.

Civic involvement

Cash served two terms as president of the Texas State Arts and Crafts Fair and the Hill Country Arts Foundation. In 1992, Gov. Ann Richards appointed her to the board of the Lower Colorado River Authority. In other civic areas, Cash has served two terms as president of the Hill Country Arts Foundation. In 2010, she coordinated the relocation of the Stonehenge II visual art installation from its location on FM 1340 near Hunt, Texas to the HCAF grounds on Texas Highway 39 in Ingram.

Footnote references

• Hill Country Arts Foundation board of directors, http://www.hcaf.com/foundation/board/default.htm/
• Texas Library, LCRA board appointments, http://texinfo.library.unt.edu/Texasregister/text/1992/0508gov.txt
• How Texas Government Can be Transparent and Open Texas Tribune
• The Impact of Social Media on Open Government [www.texasbar.com/.../Special_OpenGovernment_TheImpactofSocialMedia_ClarkeBrowningCashMcKamieSalas-Mendoza_FinalArticle.pdf]
• UT Austin Experts Guide
• The Molly National Journalism Prize
• One Less Worry in the Lone Star State
• Texas Newspaper Oral History
• Austin-LCRA water deal has some wary
• The News in Texas
• Texas Student Media
• Cash discusses the new College of Communication Building

References