The AIPA's Marie Potts Journalism Award

Jerry Gambill (aka Rarihokwats), Managing Editor of Akwesasne Notes, was the first recipient of the Marie Potts Journalism Award, an honor created and bestowed by the pioneering American Indian Press Association (AIPA). The inaugural ceremony took place at the Denver Indian Center on November 16, 1972. The Rocky Mountain News covered the story, reporting that "The Award includes a $500 prize and is the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Mrs. Marie Potts, the award's namesake is the 77-year-old editor of 'Smoke Signals' [sic], a Sacramento, Calif. monthly news magazine. She was instrumental in the founding AIPA." Note: The Smoke Signal was often, and continues to be, inaccurately referred to in the plural; and while Potts was indeed one of approximately 10 co-founders, the driving figure behind development of the AIPA was Charles "Chuck" Trimble.)