Does it get any better than a shout out on Twitter? A really good brother posted this tweet this week: "Big shout to my man @herbertlowe for schooling me on the site builder weebly.com. Herb, the site is now official: www.jessewashington.com." Man, amazing how someone typing 140 characters can really make your day!

Last month, I shared how Jesse and three other branding experts had wowed a crowded session, "Brand You: Creating Your Own Online Identity," at the NABJ convention in Philadelphia. Moments after the session, Jesse texted me, asking to meet so we could catch up. Minutes later, he and another friend of mine, Austin Fenner, chatted some more about branding and how to create a personal branding website. I showed them this site on Jesse's iPad and recounted how easy it was to build using Weebly.com. I could tell Jesse was feeling it.

The next week I shared the "Brand You" Storify I did with Jesse. Urged him in no uncertain terms to get a website ASAP after only finding online about him a short story on USA Today's site. The story is very inadequate considering Jesse's career. He assured me his site was soon to go live. Hence, the tweeted shout out this week!

Jesse's site looks very good, very distinctive. I really like his home page, especially how he is explicit about what he does and what he doesn't do. Looking forward to reading the articles he has posted as well as his blog. I'm sure that when I do, he'll be schooling me – and my students – about great storytelling about what he calls "real people."

The series of emails started coming the first day I was added to the listserve of the Minorities and Communication Division of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication. Evonne H. Whitmore, Ph.D., an associate professor for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University, had passed away earlier that morning, last Thursday, after a battle with ovarian cancer. I didn't really know the woman everyone seemed to call "Von." But it is readily apparent how much she meant to so many people.

Here's the obituary published in the Daily Kent Stater, the Kent State student newspaper. Here, too, is a wonderful remembrance by a dear friend, George L. Daniels, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. "When it comes to journalism and media, Evonne Whitmore was a winner in every way– a champion who constantly made touchdowns as a broadcast journalist, a media scholar, a program planner, newsletter editor and professional organization leader," Daniels wrote.

According to the listserve, many people within AEJMC are already considering multiple divisions and perhaps the entire organization can and should best create a lasting legacy in Dr. Whitmore's memory.

Dr. Whitmore's homegoing celebration is set for today in Akron, Ohio. In lieu of flowers, those who wish to are asked to make donation's in her name via check and payable to the Kent State University Foundation at: KSU/JMC, P.O. Box 5190, Kent, OH 44242. Reference The Dr. Evonne H. Whitmore Memorial Scholarship on the check.

My brother, Curtis, shared the news via text message earlier this week: "Check out today's Courier-Post. There is a nice feature article on the front of the sports page with photo about Calvin and the upcoming season." You may remember from this blog post from last November that Calvin Lowe is the starting varsity quarterback at Timber Creek High School in my native South Jersey. Last season, Sarah Hoye of CNN.com did an online feature about how he and his parents were dealing with the realities of playing a sport prone to serious injuries.

Well, my nephew is now a high school senior – where does the time go! – and the Courier-Post's Kevin Minnick has indeed written a nice profile about him in the newspaper's "Varsity Football" blog. The thrust is that Calvin is demonstrating that he understands that academics really matter as he pursues an athletic scholarship to college.

"Lowe has generated college interest from the likes of Akron, Temple, Villanova, James Madison and Towson," Minnick writes. More importantly, he adds, "Lowe took an online math class last year and re-took two classes this summer, each helping to raise his grade-point average." Minnick also quotes Calvin's coach, Rob Hinson: “We laid out all the options for him as far as what he could do after this year if this doesn’t happen academically. Now he’ll be a full qualifier. Academically, he increased his core. He’s getting everything together."

Having written and read too many stories about lost opportunities for high school athletes, the article warms my heart. It makes me even prouder of my nephew and the job that Curtis and his wife, Renarda, have done in raising him and his siblings. Having not seen Calvin play since his sophomore season, I'm really hoping to get to a Timber Creek football game this season. He'll always be a scrub to me. But I'm happy he's focusing on leading by example.

When seeing on Twitter and Facebook that a 5.9-magnitude earthquake had rattled the East Coast this afternoon, I immediately thought of a couple stories I wrote for The Philadelphia Inquirer 18 years ago. 

A native of Camden, N.J., I had just started as a reporter in the newspaper's South Jersey bureau a couple of months earlier. I really enjoyed writing an in-depth article about the Burlington County Bridge Commission considering spending nearly $2 million to protect the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge from an earthquake. Here's an excerpt:

Although a quake rarely strikes this area, it could happen, experts say. To them, the $1.9 million that the commissioners have tentatively put aside to retrofit the Tacony-Palmyra would be money well spent. They say the project is basically a matter of driving nails through the bridge's feet to increase its chance of staying put if shaken. 

Transportation officials nationwide say thousands of older bridges could collapse from a moderate earthquake. Designs for new bridges built with state or federal funds must meet updated earthquake -proofing standards. Older taxpayer-supported bridges get retrofitted during overhauls. 

Because the Burlington County Bridge Commission is essentially a private bridge owner – its money comes from commuter tolls – neither the Federal Highway Administration nor the state Department of Transportation will order an earthquake retrofit for the Tacony-Palmyra. That leaves the commission, even though it's already put the $1.9 million aside, still wrestling over what to do. "That really threw us. That $2 million pricetag was a bit staggering," said commission spokesman Robert Stears. "The bridge has stood since 1929 without any kind of earthquake affecting it. It's not as if earthquakes really happen very much in this region."

Click here to read the entire story. Hoping everyone back home and across the East Coast is OK.

With only three semesters' experience, I know there's so much more to learn about teaching journalism to college students. Fortunately, Marquette's Center for Teaching and Learning provided a great deal of help during its two-day "Back to School Faculty Summer Institute" last week. I attended six of the eight sessions. Very glad I did.

Focused on content, structure and setting the tone for the semester during the "Syllabus Tune-Up" session and being sure to develop my inner lawyer and to "link, link, link" in the "Copyright and Plagiarism" workshop. Definitely got a lot out of the "First Day of Classes" primer – especially the nugget that how students view the initial 45 minutes of meeting an instructor establishes how they will likely perceive the course and instructor the rest of the semester.

We got our first look at the upgraded D2L, or Desire2Learn, the university's learning management system that connects teachers and students. The next session, "Having Difficult Conversations," will help us better address troublesome comments or subjects in our classrooms so they become learning opportunities. The last workshop involved "Teaching Millennials" and understanding what makes today's college students unique and promoting tactics for communicating with them based on their contexts and expectations.

Kudos to the center's new director, Shaun Longstreet, and all of the speakers for producing a wonderful and insightful program. I look forward to applying what I learned during the new semester. It begins next week. OMG!

Someone once joked that my wife and I, then still both working for Newsday, were bridging the digital divide all by ourselves. Between the two of us, we own an iMac, two MacBook Pros, an iPad and two iPhones.

As black journalists with relationships forged in newsrooms and media organizations, most of our friends and associates, like us, are news junkies – and use mobile devices to stay informed, connected and productive.

But a report released this week by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, “How Americans Use Their Cell Phones,” suggests that most African Americans don’t use their cell phones for similar reasons.

Click here to read my article, published online by the Poynter Institute, to learn ways that media companies and others can help to create greater appetites for accessing news and information among mobile device users.

Here is my latest Storify, sharing ideas and online resources for using Twitter, Storify and other social media in the classroom. Presented this in part during my show-and-share, titled by Al Tompkins as "Using Twitter and Storify for Good Not Evil," during the "Teachapalooza" seminar for journalism educators at the Poynter Institute in Florida. The positive feedback from that presentation coupled with interest from my fellow educators at the recent NABJ convention in Philadelphia inspired me to look for even more such resources online. Let's continue to "teach it!"

This video shows how Arthur Fennell, Jay Harris and Allison Bourne-Vanneck conspired against me at the 2011 National Association of Black Journalists Golf Tournament. Here's Allison's written account:

Herb Lowe thought he had just wrapped up another round of golf. He exhaled coming off the last hole and thought it was time for fellowship with friends, perhaps a drink, and a time to re-live all the great golf moments at Freeway Golf Course that day. But Lowe thought wrong – more fun at Freeway Golf Course was just 10 feet in front of him.

Leading the way was Lowe's long-time friend and trusted golf partner, Arthur Fennell, who was flashing the biggest 'Kool-Aid man' grin in the history of Kool-Aid. Lowe was led to his golf cart and soon encountered the biggest "Whoa" moment in his golf career. "Whoa!" said Lowe stepping back. "Did you see that? Did you see that?" He said out loud to his group, pointing at a motionless red snake. Fennell tried to hold his giggles. He had waited 18 holes to pull the rubber-snake prank on Lowe. "Wha-hoa! Did you just see that! Did you just ... George, did you just see that!" Lowe nervously asked his other partner, who's first name was really Jay. "Not George, I'm sorry, Jay," Lowe said as more chuckles erupted from the group, and Lowe looked at the snake in disbelief.

Then Fennell saw his opportunity. He bent down, picked up the rubber snake, and flicked it furiously it at Lowe so they made as much contact as possible. "Come on man. Don't do that!" Lowe turned and ran back towards the green. The laughter grew even louder. The jig was officially up. "Is all that on camera?" asked Lowe, pointing to the videographer, another golf partner of his. No one could answer – the laughter could probably be heard two foursomes behind them. "Now that's just wrong!" said Lowe, shaking his head, coming to terms with Fennell's prank. 

That's just a day with Fennell at Freeway.

OK, yes, they got me. For the record, I should have suspected something was up when Arthur needlessly moved our golf cart from one spot to another by the 18th green, and also when Allison pulled out the video camera (just before I hit a birdie putt). I'll just end with Jay sharing that after he and Allison conspired – yes, conspired! – to play me, they asked the following key question: "What kind of grown man keeps a rubber snake in his golf bag?"

Updated August 17: Check out this nice report by Allison about a Virgin Islands presence at the NABJ convention.

Updated August 18: Jerry Bembry offers this video of another practical joke against me, this time on a golf course in Baltimore in 2007. It was wrong then and it is wrong now! To think, Jerry was my best man and Arthur was a groomsman in my wedding. How does the saying go, "With friends like these ...?"

Presenting my latest Storify, recounting a panel discussion on online personal branding at the NABJ convention. The standing-room-only session's moderator – Benet Wilson, online managing editor, Aviation Week-McGraw Hill – and panelists – Natalie McNeal, creator, The Frugalista Files; Jesse Washington, national writer on race and ethnicity for The Associated Press; and Mario Armstrong, chief content editor, Mario Armstrong Media – were top-notch. The tweets from attendees demonstrate how much everyone present appreciated the session.

Here's an interesting opinion piece by Joel Dreyfuss, managing editor of The Root. He is one of 44 founders of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and offers his perspective on the organization's past, present and future. He focuses particularly on NABJ's decision earlier this year to quit Unity: Journalists of Color, an alliance with other ethnic journalism associations. Having served as NABJ's president from 2003 to 2005, I am always happy to learn from our founders what it was like to be a black journalist back in the day.

"Those of us in mainstream media were often at war with our editors," wrote Dreyfuss, who was with The Washington Post when NABJ was founded in 1975. "The unrest in black communities, and the Kerner Commission Report on the segregated nature of the news business, had cracked the door open for black reporters. We saw the way the news was covered as one-sided, especially when it came to racial incidents or violence involving the police."

Dreyfuss also shared how black journalists got crucial stories past their editors – or as he put it, "'the desk,'" the bastion of conformity that served as a firewall against the inflammatory stories of rage and deep dissatisfaction that we brought back. The advice from our elders was priceless: Find someone conservative to say it; use statistics to make your point; use a soft lead – and then hit 'em with the facts."

Finally, truly humbled that The Root chose to affix to Dreyfuss' column an image of me sharing the stage with former President Bill Clinton during NABJ's 30th annual convention in Atlanta in 2005. Clinton's visit helped NABJ make news that day – always a good thing during a convention – and helped demonstrate our organization's influence.