Dena Potter, ’01, former editor of The Eastern Progress, was recently named the 2022 Communicator of the Year by the National Association of Government Communicators.
Potter serves as the director of communications for the Virginia Department of General Services (DGS). She was responsible for the Vaccinate Virginia communication campaign, which helped raise Virginia’s COVID-19 vaccinations from 11.8 percent to more than 55 percent between February and May 2021.
When asked what the most rewarding part of her experience was, she said, “Virginia went from trailing nearly every other state in terms of vaccines to consistently being ranked in the top 10. There were so many people who came together to make that happen, but they didn’t do it for the rankings. They did it to save lives. It is an extremely rewarding thing to realize that you played even a very small part in that.”
Prior to working at the Virginia DGS, Potter was the Virginia and West Virginia news editor for the Associated Press. At EKU, she earned a bachelor’s in journalism and a minor in political science.