Does the PRSA PR Trade Cartel Have an Alcohol Problem?

The PR industry’s U.S. trade association (Public Relations Society of America, or PRSA) does not have an enforced alcohol-abuse prevention policy required for national board and “key person” compliance.

This omission is now fast-evolving as a major liability issue (alcohol abuse can seriously harm innocent people)… not to mention an industry embarrassment.

More and more alcohol-abuse incidents are bubbling to the surface in PRSA… although they’ve been going on for many years now.

For all of the public relations industry’s focus on “image” and “reputation” and “public trust,” what does it say to the global corporate, governmental, and institutional world, when the United States’ PR trade association continuously and now habitually flaunts its national leaders’ alcohol-consumption exploits?

Some (not all of them, but far too many) PRSA National Board members and other legally liable PRSA “key persons” often behave like a gaggle of unsupervised, 19-year-old spring-breakers, out on the loose at the beach bars of Fort Lauderdale, filling their gullets to the brim with whatever booze they can get their hands on.

Over nearly a decade now, PRSA’s embarrassingly recurrent open-mouth-insert-foot disease has morphed into open-mouth-insert-cocktail (or jello shot, as it were).

I’m no teetotaler myself, to be clear. So, my intent here is not to render social judgments from on high.

I enjoy a cocktail or a wine-pairing dinner just as much as many people do. To boot, I’m a native Tennessean… the land of Jack Daniels and the Tennessee Whiskey Trail. With that said, I have no problem with folks who drink responsibly and avoid placing people in danger. (And part of drinking responsibly is not drinking on a “company dime” when the company has no dimes).

What I do have a problem with, however, is a morally bankrupt trade cartel masquerading as a “not for profit business league,” teetering on the edge of financial bankruptcy (which is now a poorly-kept secret, in violation of New York State law requiring audited financial disclosures), all the while, unethically spending unaccounted-for member dollars on pub crawls and jello shots during member-funded conferences and board meetings — and with nearly as many “receipts” of alcohol-laden misconduct as the quantity of bar bills.

In this legally obtained e-mail below of October 2024, Heide Harrell — then a “senior counsel” member of PRSA’s National Board — made threatening remarks about a female PRSA Assembly delegate alongside her remark about “BLOODYS AND BURGERS” for lunch, spurred by PRSA Past Chair Mickey Nall‘s own remark that he would “cut a bitch” who dared question Harrell’s so-called “ethics.”

Upon taking the PRSA helm as Chair this past January, Heide Harrell made sure to spotlight her beverage of choice as a part of a profile article in her local Arkansas newspaper.

The article described the process of Harrell even getting elected as PRSA Chair as “A Whole Ordeal” and that “talk(ing) the voting members of PRSA into putting her in charge” “wasn’t easy.”

Then, about a month later, Heide Harrell alerted a cherrypicked few that PRSA was facing a dry tap of cash flow, while not giving up too many details about the crisis or how, precisely, her own involvement on the Board since 2020 contributed to this mess:

Harrell (author of the “shank her ass” remark, above) has continued in 2026 making her love for vodka no secret…

Last week, I wrote to PRSA’s new legal counsel of record, Jeff Tenenbaum, a now-former Venable LLP employee himself. (A past lobbyist to Ketchum’s Vladimir Putin account and to other anti-U.S. foreign adversaries, Venable LLP’s long-time legal services to PRSA are apparently now too pricey for PRSA’s champagne-tastes-on-a-beer-budget).

Among other things, I asked Mr. Tenenbaum to provide documentation that PRSA will adopt a new zero-tolerance policy toward PRSA National leaders abusing alcohol during PRSA member-funded events and board meetings.

I’ve yet to hear back from Mr. Tenenbaum. It appears he and/or the PRSA Board have to “mull” this one over, so to speak.

Maybe it’s no wonder that Mr. Tenenbaum is the author of the “coffee table book,” “Quarantine Cocktails,” and as such, perhaps he endorses PRSA’s falling-over-drunk modus operandi… although I look forward to him clarifying things.

In the meantime, over this past weekend, I discovered a new PR News trade publication posting by an excessively friendly reporter to PRSA, who interviewed PRSA Chair-Elect Angela Eveillard.

Ms. Eveillard is a PRSA “Gator Mafia” cartel / University of Florida alumni member who is employed by a taxpayer-funded community college in Florida.

Thanks to my having issued a government open-records request on Ms. Eveillard’s e-mails in the past year or so, I discovered that the PRSA National Board’s “inappropriate behaviors” have been — true to form relative to their treatment of me — “unbecoming” of a national leadership body and are actually quite well-known internally to the PRSA Board cartel.

One must question how much of this PRSA misconduct is fueled by alcohol:

At any rate, PR News’ super-friendly reporter asked Ms. Eveillard last week about PRSA’s International Conference (ICON) in Orlando, which took place a week ago at this writing. The reporter asked Ms. Eveillard if she had participated in Disney’s / Epcot’s “drink around the world thing.”

I had to look it up, as I had never heard of Epcot’s “drink around the world” “THING.”

Video clip below of Ms. Eveillard’s response:

Turns out, it’s a non-Disney sponsored or endorsed “challege,” where groups of Epcot visitors traverse some 11 national pavilions at Epcot and consume an alcoholic cocktail / beer / other drink from each Epcot “location,” and then somehow try to find a way to stumble out of Epcot with 11 different drinks sloshing around in their gut.

Drink Around The World At Disney's Epcot World Showcase pic.twitter.com/wy4SjPwUiE

— BuzzFeed Food (@BuzzFeedFood) February 1, 2022

Eveillard responded to PR News’ question, coyly:

“The board may or may not have done that on Thursday as a bonding experience“…

Her “maybe we did and maybe we didn’t” type of remark implies Ms. Eveillard’s obvious knowledge that carousing around in this manner is not exactly on the up-and-up for proper governance board behavior.

I looked back through my prior, legally obtained e-mails from Ms. Eveillard’s past PRSA correspondences, and as it turns out, “Doctor” Eveillard has previously prescribed / suggested “Gin (or whiskey)” to her legally and ethically compromised PRSA Past Chair Garland Stansell, for his “headache” arguably caused from PRSA’s own incompetence and corruption:

For anyone following along from home, please stay tuned, as I await Mr. Tenenbaum’s response to my e-mail to him on October 22, 2026, to see if PRSA will indeed adopt (and then enforce… which is a completely different “thing”) an alcohol-abuse policy.

Below is my verbatim e-mail inquiry on October 22, 2026, to Mr. Tenenbaum, with more evidence:

TO:       Jeff Tenenbaum, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) National / External Legal Counsel of Record

Dear Mr. Tenenbaum:

I am writing to inform you that your client, PRSA, does not appear to have an alcohol-use or substance-abuse provision in its written policies, barring use of alcohol or similar substances by PRSA National volunteers or staff during PRSA Board meetings or abuse of alcohol during PRSA-sponsored and member-funded events.

Please note that PRSA received in recent years more than $1 million in federal taxpayer-funded pandemic relief, most of which PRSA has not paid back to the government, according to records.  Provision and “forgive(ness)” of this money by the U.S. federal government hinged on “compliance,” as your now-former / “fired” CFO (according to Heide Harrell in recent discoverable e-mails) previously stated in writing to Board officers in 2021:

This omission of a PRSA alcohol use / abuse policy presents an escalating problem, now years in the making.  

For background, I point your attention to this “liquid lunch” social media posting created and amplified by PRSA Headquarters in 2016 when Mark McClennan was PRSA Chair; Jane Dvorak was PRSA Chair-Elect; and Tony D’Angelo was a PRSA National Board officer as well (see attached for my e-mail exchange with D’Angelo, when I voiced protest to PRSA’s then-CEO Joe Truncale, about this ridiculous meme posted and amplified by PRSA, Inc.):

In 2017, Tony D’Angelo sent to me the below e-mail, reporting to me that Jane Dvorak (as then Chair of PRSA) was, essentially, out of control in her behaviors and creating massive problems for PRSA Board leadership and overall governance:

I also point your attention, Mr. Tenenbaum, to these past social media postings from 2018 and 2014, by this same past PRSA National Chair and ethics repeat-offender, Jane Dvorak. 

The “Jello shots” post by Dvorak drew an outcry of protest among countless members in 2018 and serves as documentation of PRSA’s hideous culture of boozy, alcohol-laden buffoonery in PRSA national leadership:

This matter is now of concern pertaining to the frequency that alcohol use and/or potential abuse is being documented in other public-facing PRSA communication and in discoverable e-mails accessible through the public domain (such as government open records requests). 

PRSA director / staff / “key person” substance abuse sheds a negative light on the entire PR industry, Mr. Tenenbaum.

I should not have to tell you that, nor should I have to speak that reality out-loud to PRSA.  But here we are.

I also feel obligated to remind you that many PRSA National events such as ICON also include PRSSA students, many of whom are underage.

Yesterday, a colleague who attended the PRSA ICON event in Orlando called me, to say they had directly observed seeing a PRSA leader “wearing a medal” (not sure if a College of Fellows or a PRSA Past National President medal)  having been overserved at the hotel bar, and practically falling off their chair / barstool, in front of everyone.

Also yesterday, a concerned PRSA member – who is intimidated about speaking up in PRSA due to PRSA’s well-documented history of unlawful whistleblower retaliation (especially since Jane Dvorak is now PRSA’s “Grievance Chair”) – sent to me the below photo of 2026 PRSA Chair Heide Harrell, taken only in recent days (presumably at ICON this past week) – with a poster also seen in the photo, featuring another photo of Heide Harrell in “princess” regalia (which itself is utterly juvenile and offensive), and with a word cloud also visible on the poster, inclusive of the word, “vodka.”

The clear message here is that Ms. Harrell is – potentially / presumably – a frequent user of “vodka” as one of her PRSA National Board management crutches…

…And so much so, that this word appears on a poster collage of descriptors (created by her own colleagues who know her best) that most typify / imply precisely who Heide Harrell is and what she is about. (If there is another way to interpret the inclusion of the word “vodka” on this poster, Mr. Tenenbaum, I welcome you / your client to finesse an explanation.)

Indeed, numerous recently discovered PRSA e-mails legally obtained through a government open records search document Ms. Harrell’s (and her PRSA cartel compatriots’, both elected on PRSA’s current Board and unelected) deep affinity for alcoholic drink as a potential coping mechanism for their own PRSA misconduct and toxic cesspool of a culture:

And there are more.

Mr. Tenenbaum – I ask that you please advise your client to get ahold of themselves with the alcohol use / abuse, if not for their own wellbeing, then at least to keep innocent people from being victimized at the hands of PRSA “key person” negligence / recklessness / abuse.

I strongly advise creation and adoption – ASAP – of an official, written, and widely communicated / promoted PRSA National policy treating the issue of alcohol use and abuse in PRSA, with a zero-tolerance policy of abusing alcohol by PRSA key persons in the course of PRSA business and sponsored activities / venues.

In December 2020, I received threatening, utterly unhinged texts and voice mail from a PRSA College of Fellows past chair, threatening my life / safety, saying she would “end it” at my “peril” if I did not cease my protests of PRSA ethics violations and instead “work with” the incoming 2021 PRSA National Chair, Michelle Olson – yet another ethics violator in the PRSA National association, in my experience dealing with her and as documented in copious records.

This caller / texter demanded I “work with” Michelle Olson and become complicit with PRSA behaviors and activities, even though they are often unethical and even illegal.

This person’s mafia-like message to me, to paraphrase:  “Work with Michelle Olson / PRSA, OR ELSE.”

Please see the texts below that I received from this person working as a surrogate on Michelle Olson’s behalf:

After calling me in the night and cursing me (to which I hung up the phone with tremendous alarm and distress), this individual continued calling me, leaving me a very unhinged voice mail (attached), which sounded to me as if this PRSA figurehead had also been drinking to excess.

This voice mail was followed some days later by yet another voice mail (attached) by this same woman, voicing apologies for her prior mistreatment of me and requesting “a do-over.”

This individual never faced any accountability whatsoever in PRSA for her abuse toward me, even after I reported this matter (in writing) to your own alma mater law firm, Venable LLP (then representing PRSA), which dismissed my report out of hand and then railroaded even more undue and illegal whistleblower retaliation toward me, by command of Michelle Olson and her fellow cartel members, such as Jane Dvorak, Mark McClennan, Tony D’Angelo, Mickey Nall, Gary McCormick, Mike Cherenson, Joseph Abreu, Del Galloway, etc., etc… also including John Paluszek of the Ketchum PR (Omnicom) firm, who himself failed to disclose to anyone (certainly not to me) his firm’s long, storied history of using Venable LLP “services” (so to speak) themselves in his / Ketchum’s so-called “PR” work for the Russian Federation / Vladimir Putin.

PRSA is a walking liability lawsuit, Mr. Tenenbaum.

Innocent PRSA members and PRSSA students (including under-age students) are in the crosshairs of this behavior, as was I, on a repeated basis.

Your rogue client and their various inebriated / impaired / ill-considered behaviors relative to alcohol use / abuse requires immediate action. I require a response from you / PRSA, to document what you / PRSA will do on this matter of PRSA leadership / cartel alcohol abuse and years-overdue policy reforms necessary to shore up PRSA’s illegal and noncompliant activities, clearly often taken up while under the influence.

Regards,

Mary Beth West

Mary Beth West, APR, FPRCA, is a longtime whistleblower of corruption in the PRSA trade association cartel.