Everyone loves a parade, but not many people realize what goes
into planning one.

Two students from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford are
finding that out during an internship at American Refining Group as
they assist in the planning of the company’s 125th anniversary
celebration.

However, parade planning is only one aspect of their
involvement. Brian Pekelnicky of East Springfield and Katie Brown
of Eldred are fully engaged in every aspect of the
behind-the-scenes planning and advertising leading up to the
commemoration.

As members of the parade planning committee, they have been
contacting people and organizations about taking part in the
parade. Brown is in charge of gathering and collating all of the
information from the parade participants. Once all of the
information has been collected, the parade committee will determine
the parade order.

Pekelnicky, who is in charge of most of the advertising, has
been honing his creative skills formatting and creating the
advertisements for a variety of publications and the poster that
can be seen throughout the area.ð

As a business management major who is minoring in marketing and
public relations, Pekelnicky said that some of the marketing and
promotional writing projects he worked on in his classes prepared
him for this internship.

In his Introduction to Public Relations course, he and his
fellow students reviewed and critiqued press releases, discussed
their effectiveness, and then wrote their own.

In the Promotional Writing class, he learned to write feature
articles and speeches, and create advertisements. For the final
class project, he created a portfolio that included a resume and
cover letter and all of the work he had done in that class as well
as his other courses.

“Making us do this was a great idea,” Pekelnicky said, “because
when I was called for the interview at ARG, I was not looking for
an internship and did not have anything prepared. However, with the
portfolio that John Schlimm, visiting instructor of public
relations, had us create, I was able to show ARG the work I was
capable of doing.”

Brown said, “I certainly wrote my fair share of press releases
for Professor Schlimm’s classes, but all of that practice gave me
the confidence to know what would be an eye catcher to a potential
client or future business associate.”

One of their group projects in class was to create a media kit
for the president and the first lady for a hypothetical event they
would attend.ðThey designed official White House stationary,
created a schedule for the president and first lady, wrote press
releases and speeches, and planned the logistics of the event.

“Now, working on ARG’s 125th anniversary,” Brown said, “I am
able to take what I learned in event planning from that class and
use it now.ðThis time, however, it’s the real deal. In class, I was
designing stationary for the White House just for practice.ðNow, we
are sending letters to President Bush and first lady Laura Bush,
inviting them to our anniversary celebration. It’s pretty
amazing.”

When designing ads for the ARG campaign, Pekelnicky often thinks
back to his marketing classes where he and his fellow students
discussed what types of advertisement and direct-marketing pieces
were effective.

“Many of the concepts I used for that class were very helpful in
marketing the 125th anniversary,” he said.

Pekelnicky, whose lifetime dream is to work for the Pittsburgh
Pirates, believes his work at ARG and coursework at Pitt-Bradford
have fully prepared him for that career goal.

“I consider this experience to be bridging a gap between my life
as a student and my soon-to-be life as a working adult,” he said.
“I am learning so much from my experience at ARG that is makes me
feel very much like a student, yet at the same time I am seeing how
things work outside of the classroom in the real world. I think
this internship has been a great learning experience not only from
an academic perspective but also learning about myself in
general.”

Brown, a public relations major, works closely with vendors from
Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York gathering the key chains, hats,
T-shirts, mugs and commemorative bags that will be available at the
swap meet and auction of oil refinery memorabilia that ARG will be
conducting.

For the interns, a typical days starts with contacting possible
participants in the kick-off parade, booking tent rentals for the
swap meet, ordering samples of promotional items, obtaining quotes
for banners, and ending with confirming reservations for the
pre-auction mixer.

“I have never been part of something this huge before,” Brown
said. “This whole project consists of zillions of tiny little
projects.ðI have a to-do list that I absolutely must stay on top
of, and as the days go on, that list just gets bigger and
bigger.”

She said the work she did in her Introduction to Human
Communication class prepared her for what to expect in the
workplace.

“A part of my job included calling various business owners and
obtaining quotes for promotional materials,” she said. “A lot of
the planning that I do for this event includes establishing
professional relationships with different advertisers and business
associates. Thanks to my schooling, I have gained the confidence I
need with my communication skills.”

Jennifer Taylor, marketing specialist at ARG, who supervises
Pekelnicky and Brown, said both students caught on in a hurry and
applied the theories they learned in the classroom to the job at
hand.

“This is a great opportunity for Katie and Brian,” said Taylor,
who is also a Pitt-Bradford alumna. “As they learn the
minute-by-minute logistics of planning such a large event and make
presentations, they have become more comfortable and
confident.”