Publishers win top deer award

Publishers win top deer award

Angie Fussell & Trevor Walton, the former owner-publishers of The Deer Farmer magazine, have been awarded the 2008 Deer Industry Award.

The couple were part of a team that launched the magazine in 1979 from their living room in Carterton, Wairarapa. The award, which was presented at the NZ Deer Farmers Association Conference in Invercargill last week, was for an "unparalleled 30 year contribution to the deer industry".

Trevor, who at various times worked as publisher, editor and writer of the magazine, was also awarded honorary membership of the NZ Deer Farmers’ Association. Angie's roles included sub-editing, advertising sales and publication management.

Unusually, for a small industry, The Deer Farmer is subscription-based and editorially independent of industry organisations. Under Angie and Trevor’s ownership it developed a reputation for in-depth reporting and a willingness to challenge vested interests.

In particular, the magazine locked antlers with meat industry giant PPCS when it opposed the industry’s Cervena initiative during the early 1990s. PPCS is now a Cervena franchisee.

Angie and Trevor also operate a public relations consultancy, but took pains to ensure that this did not influence the editorial policy of the magazine. In August 2007, they sold The Deer Farmer to Country-Wide Publications based in Feilding.

Angie & Trevor, along with Barney O'Connor, were also the founding publishers of the NZ Agrichemical Manual, now published by AgriMedia Limited, Christchurch.

These days, Angie is executive director of YWCA Aotearoa New Zealand. Trevor remains principal of Wellington-based WHAM Public Relations which numbers some major primary sector organisations among its clients.

ENDS

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