Society of American Business Editors and Writers to Hold Spring Conference at SMU in Dallas

DALLAS, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Known as a top business center in the nation, Dallas will host the 48th annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers April 7-9, 2011, at Southern Methodist University.

Headlining the Dallas conference will be:

• Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, who will deliver the conference opening address.
• Gary Kelly, chairman and chief executive of Southwest Airlines; and Gerard J. Arpey, chairman and chief executive of American Airlines Inc., who will head a panel on the airline industry. This is timely in light of Southwest's recent acquisition of AirTran Airways.
• Aubrey McClendon, chairman and chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp., the second-largest producer of natural gas and the most active driller of new wells in the U.S., who will talk about the future of natural gas in America's energy policy.
• Alfredo Corchado, Mexico City bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News, who will speak on the effect of drug cartel violence on Texas-Mexico border businesses.

To register, go to www.sabew.org.  Early-bird registration is available at $299 for SABEW members, and $349 for non-members.

Hosting SABEW will be SMU's Division of Journalism.  Education sessions will be at the SMU Collins Center. In addition to the 297-seat Crum Auditorium, the center has four tiered classrooms, each seating 66 people, and 15 seminar rooms with seating for 6-to-10 apiece.

For a truly unique Dallas experience, the annual SABEW Best in Business Awards reception will be held on April 9 at Dallas' most infamous location — the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. The museum is located on the sixth and seventh floors of an early 20th-century warehouse known in 1963 as the Texas School Book Depository.  Following the assassination of President Kennedy, the building became the focus of shock, grief and outrage. Evidence was found showing that shots were fired from the sixth floor, and depository employee Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the president's murder.

Conference-goers will stay at the Hotel Palomar, named by CitySearch as Dallas' best boutique hotel, located near SMU.  The rate is $155 per night.

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will conduct an all-day skills session on "Mining the U.S. Census for Local Business Stories," on April 7.  That evening, the full SABEW conference will open with a reception and program at the campus art museum.

Pam Yip of the Dallas Morning News and Mark Vamos of SMU are SABEW site coordinators.

SOURCE Society of American Business Editors and Writers