PRSA Scores Help with Harrell’s Expenses from Arkansas Utility
New York's PRSA PR trade group leverages taxpayer-funded government and university staffs for legally noncompliant DEI partisan activities.
TO: Heide Harrell, PRSA National Chair (Director of Communications / Central Arkansas Water, Little Rock, Arkansas); Matthew Marcial, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) CEO (New York, NY)
FR: Mary Beth West
Dear Heide and Matt:
Please find the legally obtained (government open records) e-mail from 2021 PRSA National Chair-Elect Dr. Felicia Blow to you, Heide, and to now-PRSA National Chair-Elect for 2026, Angela Eveillard, below, with embedded attachment.
The attachment of Dr. Blow’s e-mail exposes PRSA’s troubling history with national PRSA board- and staff-level behavioral problems and “hostile work place” issues of five years ago (not exactly ancient history).
Several who served on the PRSA Board in 2021 responsible for this “hostile” alleged environment (see photo below) remain on PRSA’s Board now and / or oversee current PRSA Nominating Committee / “NomCom” operations to choose future PRSA leaders, which is now steeped in DEI partisanship and bias.
My highlights added to Dr. Blow’s secret PRSA e-mail and attachment, for emphasis:
It seems things in PRSA keep going from bad to worse, Heide and Matt.
Seeking to harm me via PRSA’s retaliatory kangaroo court in 2021 hasn’t helped PRSA, Heide. It’s only made your problems more visible, because the real problems (corrupt leaders) have continued — unabated, unchecked, and unaccountable.
In follow-up to numerous e-mails and blog posts I’ve already shared with you this year documenting recent and historical PRSA misconduct and legal-noncompliance, I’ve written a new post this week, documenting PRSA’s noncompliant DEI practices.
“DEI Purity Test: New PRSA E-mails Show How NomCom Sausage is Made”:
Newly obtained government open records document how PRSA has targeted, unduly pressured, and, arguably, strong-armed PRSA member-affiliated government- and university-employed PR workforces and certain government contractors to push DEI tactics already designated as legally non-compliant by the U.S. Department of Justice, often in violation of various federal orders and state legal statutes.
To that end, please note that I sent a detailed message to Past PRSA National Chair Gary McCormick last week (with copy to PRSA’s long-time – 15+ year – legal counsel of record, Venable LLP, which certainly has a reputation of its own, in profiting from its representations of U.S. foreign adversaries and by employing former U.S. VP Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, as a Venable attorney in past years).
I sent this above correspondence to Gary McCormick, due to his excessive involvement at my own alma mater university, in my local market of Knoxville, Tennessee, as documented in even more recent government open records.
I believe people (including students) have been disserved from that involvement:
I copied the Venable law firm on my e-mail to Gary, because I presume Venable LLP and Andrew Steinberg remain on PRSA’s vendor list, in spite of Venable’s troubling and politicized background:
In my lengthy e-mail to Gary McCormick (very brief excerpt above), I asked Gary that he please cease PRSA National power-brokering on behalf of his implicated cadre of specific PRSA Past Presidents Council friends, via faculty / staff employed at my publicly funded alma mater.
I also asked Gary McCormick to cease discussions on PRSA’s behalf, of PRSA’s politicized red-state economic boycotts (including PRSA’s specific boycott discussions targeting the State of Tennessee and potentially against the State of Texas), which pose antitrust law violation risks and could harm the employment of certain PRSA members.
Heide and Matt:
PRSA, Inc., makes clear in your secret “Antitrust Policy” documentation (excerpt below) that PRSA heaps all liability for PRSA’s own antitrust violations back on to its own members for “individual liability.”
It seems PRSA, Inc., was so advised, with the help of Venable LLP as legal counsel, in similar fashion to how PRSA operationalized Venable LLP using member dollars (in a year-over-year deficit year (2021)) to attack me in wrongful retaliation:
I do not believe proper disclosures have been made to PRSA National Board candidates, about just how badly PRSA has compromised itself, which can result in personal legal liabilities against unsuspecting members.
Relative to PRSA’s DEI dogma alone, I believe PRSA has already jeopardized (including in a very recent incident) one or more PRSA members’ own employment status with their taxpayer-funded university or government agency employer, including pressuring people to be part of corrupt DEI operations in PRSA.
As a matter of free speech, PRSA members can certainly participate however they wish in PRSA’s politicized DEI strategies on their own time and at their own expense (even though PRSA has falsely alleged to be a “nonpartisan” organization).
However, choosing instead to participate in PRSA’s excessively partisan DEI agenda while actively on taxpayer-funded staff time, using taxpayer-funded e-mail / servers, and/or at taxpayer-funded expense (travel, etc.) can violate state and federal laws / regulations.
Despite legal-violation risks in doing so, PRSA (via its Nominating Committee Chair Michelle Egan and her backing by Ray Day’s and Joseph Abreu’s National Board), required 2025 PRSA National Nominating Committee members – including those who are government- and university-employed and those who are government contractors beholden to executive orders – to rank-order / “rate” numerically 2025 PRSA Board candidates on a scale from 1 to 9 (1=”Does Not Meet Requirements”; 9=”Masterful/Exceptional”), as to candidates’ “Diversity Experience / Statement” among eight “Criteria” points for selection as a slated PRSA Board nominee.
Some of the candidates were also government- and university-employed.
EXCERPT OF LEGALLY OBTAINED AND LEGALLY DISCOVERABLE PRSA CANDIDATE-RATING “RUBRIC” BELOW (line item for DEI rating included):
This DEI “rating” exercise by PRSA violated U.S. Department of Justice mandates banning these types of discriminatory ideological activities to pressure DEI partisanship, particularly when either conducted by participating government-employed personnel on PRSA’s NomCom or inflicted upon participating government-employed personnel while using government e-mails or on taxpayer-funded staff time.
Heide and Matt:
You need to know that when your folks send out PRSA’s legally compromised DEI claptrap to any PRSA member with a government or public university e-mail address, then you have just made that document publicly discoverable.
In particular, Heide, I’m not quite sure why you haven’t figured this out.
I’ve discovered all kinds of troubling documents on your own employer’s publicly discoverable server at Central Arkansas Water over there in Little Rock, about which you’ve already been made aware.
Your CEO Tad Bohannon’s partisan preferences or connections (or at least that of his family’s) were made clear in this e-mail exchange, after you sent out a Central Arkansas Water news release announcing and effusively praising yourself:
To be candid, when you worked in 2021 for Hillary Clinton’s former employer, Little Rock’s Clinton-scandal-legacy Rose Law Firm, your public remarks tied to PRSA raised all kinds of eyebrows, Heide, as to how fit you yourself even were, to be on PRSA’s National Board.
After all, you openly promised “(your) lawyers” at the Rose Law Firm they would “get some free press” from your PRSA involvement.
You also balked at the notion of having strong financial competencies to understand PRSA’s own financial statements and fiduciary failings. You stated you “didn’t pass” even one single “section” of the G.R.E.
As for your employment handshake with the Central Arkansas Water (CAW) public utility, Heide, I have the letter documenting for the record that whatever your PRSA expenses and travel bills are that PRSA decides on its own whim not to pay, then you (and your CEO, Mr. Bohannon) pre-arranged in 2023 when you were hired at CAW to have those bills foisted upon Arkansas utility ratepayers to have to pay for you / PRSA.
Given PRSA’s rife non-compliance on multiple ethics and legal issues, that’s a problem, Heide.
It’s also not “good PR,” Heide, given that it was publicly undisclosed in your own CAW news release about yourself and therefore undermines public trust.
It’s also more than a little bit disgusting.
(The average annual salary in Arkansas is approximately $53,070… so you’re making more than twice that, Heide. Good for you! But hard-working Arkansas families don’t need to be paying to haul you all over the U.S. for your PRSA side-gigs, like when you are set to chair PRSA’s noncompliant NomCom yourself in a few years and force upon Board candidates DEI “gotcha!” queries, as documented further below).
I also note for the record, Heide, that you are well-documented in open media reports to have mocked / parodied / “lampooned” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and then boasted about it after you became PRSA National Chair, to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, in another softball-interview featuring yourself.
The newspaper described you as “zesty and sometimes polarizing.”
I wonder what Gov. Sanders – President Trump’s past White House press secretary – would think of this Heide Harrell / PRSA / Central Arkansas Water financial “arrangement,” in light of Arkansas state statutes also barring discriminatory DEI that PRSA flouts and ignores? (Central Arkansas Water is a beneficiary of state financing).
Maybe someday we’ll find out.
But until then… My point is this:
PRSA’s indicting electronic records showcasing DEI legal noncompliance can harm PRSA members’ employment status at taxpayer-funded entities all over the U.S., if government agency supervisors find out that PRSA roped their employee into compromised DEI activities on taxpayer-compensated time or via taxpayer-funded servers, when the U.S. Department of Justice has already publicly called out certain DEI antics as illegal.
Further, PRSA NomCom documents that were transferred last year (2025) to government servers subject to FOIA requests often contain negative and defamatory remarks about other colleagues, by name, which can become legally actionable … not just against PRSA but also against (potentially) those on PRSA NomCom engaged in the various exchanges.
I have examples.
Last year (2025), instead of using PRSA’s longtime law firm Venable LLP for consultative services, PRSA instead switched, it seems, to using Cavin Law, PLLC, https://cjcavin.com/ (C.J. Cavin).
Outside of his role last year in consulting for PRSA, Mr. Cavin serves as Chief Parliamentarian and Deputy General Counsel for the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Oklahoma is an anti-DEI state.
As such, Mr. Cavin himself is reportedly an officer of an Oklahoma state government legislative branch, and, I presume, is subject to that body’s rules and regulations pertaining to DEI. (I’m not claiming here that Mr. Cavin himself has done anything wrong; just stating some facts, for context.)
2025 NomCom Seating Chart for In-Person PRSA Candidate Interviews:
Heide and Matt:
Documentation I’ve legally obtained about the 2025 PRSA NomCom raises serious questions about inconsistencies, unequal treatment, and lack of fairness last year to specific NomCom candidates who sought to participate in good faith.
For example, PRSA should probably explain to this year’s Assembly Delegation why the 2025 NomCom favored (or disfavored) some National Board candidates by assigning two “NomCom Member(s) Assigned” but only one to other candidates.
- What did it mean for a candidate to be “assigned” a “NomCom member”?
- Were these designated NomCom members essentially concierge-type consultants to help their “assigned” “candidate” to know what to expect from the NomCom or to coach them to perform to NomCom expectations?
- Or, were these “assignments” merely in drumming up the “custom question” targeting the specified “candidate”? If such, then why were some candidates ganged up on by two NomCom members for question-creation but some candidates only faced one person’s question-creation?
Lots of opportunity here for unequal / unfair treatment of candidates:
In addition, Heide and Matt, PRSA should probably explain to the PRSA Assembly Delegation why the 2025 NomCom gave “hardball” pre-assigned / pre-scripted questions focusing on PRSA business problems to some candidates but rather ridiculous (even legally problematic) questions to others, including extra interrogation on “DEI” to some candidates but not others.
- For example, why was candidate Samantha Carroll, MBA (No. 13), given a hardball question about PRSA’s “decline in membership,” but another candidate, Brandi Michele Sims, MBA, Ph.D. (No. 20), was given a question dripping of sexism (arguably at legal risk of violating Dr. Sims’ rights) inquiring about her marital status / experience as a “military spouse”?
(Dr. Sims is not only an entrepreneur / business owner, but she also holds an MBA and a Ph.D., and, according to credentials cited on her LinkedIn profile, would have been well-qualified for PRSA Board service to help turn around PRSA’s long-running financial mess.
But instead of interviewing Dr. Sims in a serious and proper manner, PRSA’s NomCom under Michelle Egan and Joseph Abreu opted to ask Dr. Sims personal questions about her married life / “military spouse” status. Note: I do not know and have never met Dr. Sims.)
I note Dr. Sims’ academic degree obtained from a faith-based Christian university (Liberty). I therefore also question anti-Christian bias by the PRSA NomCom, particularly given Mr. Abreu’s personal involvement on the 2025 NomCom and his prior record of faith-targeted animus.
For example, I note for the record 2025 NomCom member (and 2026 NomCom Chair) Joseph Abreu’s mistreatment and bias demonstrated in 2024 toward a separate Christian university, in Florida (per legally obtained e-mails).
Mr. Abreu made false and accusatory remarks, in writing to other colleagues, against faith-based Palm Beach Atlantic University (PBAU), alleging, with outlandish disregard for facts, that the university is “not in alignment with federal law” and that PBAU’s legally protected faith-based views are “not in alignment with…PRSA’s policies,” when it’s PRSA’s own policies that are not in alignment with federal or state law.
Mr. Abreu further besmirched PBAU in writing – without proper basis (beyond his own biased personal opinions) – by accusing the university in his discoverable e-mail of “homophobia,” among other insults:
This is but one example of, in my view, Mr. Abreu’s own anti-Christian phobias and unlawful discrimination / abuses of power, on the basis of religion (a legally protected class under U.S. federal law), against law-abiding Americans, while Mr. Abreu was conducting PRSA business as National Chair of PRSA – in this case, in deliberating PRSA’s CEPR academic program certification votes.
PRSA has an ugly track record in this arena, Heide and Matt.
Another example: under Michelle Egan’s and Joseph Abreu’s PRSA Board service these recent years, many members have reported not only discrimination against Christians, but also minimizing / dismissing, disrespecting, and equivocating the suffering of those of the Jewish faith after October 7, resulting in an untold number of PRSA member resignations:
Another example:
Mr. Abreu should have been censured years ago for his destructive, secret political maneuverings to benefit himself while spreading provably false disinformation and libel about fellow PRSA members.
I speak from personal experience.
For example, Mr. Abreu’s libelous, retaliatory defamations made in writing and distributed across the PRSA network against PRSA College of Fellows members in 2018 (Susan Hart and me) in order to benefit himself politically were expulsion-worthy offenses.
Yet instead of being held accountable, Mr. Abreu was rewarded / promoted through corrupt PRSA NomCom channels to the helm of the entire trade association.
As redacted (below) for his particularly venomous defamatory and false remarks made against Susan Hart and me (by name), Mr. Abreu’s misleading e-mail of July 2, 2018 – loaded with false claims and with zero evidence (in multi-violations of the PRSA Code of Ethics), was obtained legally in 2024, via St. Lucie County Clerk (Florida) government open records where Mr. Abreu had been employed in 2018.
I only found out about Mr. Abreu’s toxic e-mail (below) in 2024, after it had been circulating without Susan Hart’s or my knowledge, for some six years.
We never had any opportunity to defend ourselves or file a lawsuit against Mr. Abreu’s scurrilous attack, because we had no idea Abreu had written this garbage and sent it out across the full PRSA network of “Chapter & District Leaders,” due to PRSA Headquarters handing over to him PRSA member e-mail addresses from its database, to do so.
The fact of the matter is, PRSA has a long history of National Board Chairs engaged in horrendous abuse of rank-and-file members, then engaging in exceptionally unethical behaviors to cover it up later.
For example, in 2017, PRSA Chair-Elect Anthony (Tony) D’Angelo openly admitted to me that 2017 Chair Jane Dovrak had behaved in an “ill-considered and offensive” manner toward me. In phone conversations, Mr. D’Angelo begged me to just let him get through 2017 without having Ms. Dvorak voted out of her PRSA office, in order to salvage PRSA’s reputation from the damage she inflicted.
Another PRSA Past National President, Kathy Lewton, also told me in writing in 2017 that Jane Dvorak was a nightmare for PRSA (“RUDE and offensive“) and that “Tony” (D’Angelo) “gets stuck managing her.”
Yet Mr. Abreu opted to lie in his e-mail to members in 2018 by falsely claiming my rightful and excessively well-documented concerns about Jane Dvorak’s often-alcohol-fueled unethical conduct in PRSA was all fabricated.
I note for the record, Heide and Matt, that you intentionally appointed the infamous Jane Dvorak in 2026 as “National Grievance Chair” of PRSA, so that all inbound complaints to PRSA about PRSA misconduct will be derailed for any proper adjudication, in gross conflicts of interest… since that’s how you folks roll:
With that snapshot of past history to illustrate what I firmly believe was and remains bad-faith by Mr. Abreu (and others)…
Other pre-scripted 2025 NomCom questions that Michelle Egan and Joseph Abreu oversaw in last year’s PRSA NomCom were equally nonsensical as those lobbed last year at Dr. Sims (and others).
- Example: the pre-scripted question given to Kevin Waetke, APR, Fellow PRSA (No. 3) stated as a baked-in presumption that if he were PRSA Treasurer, he himself would be under some form of unique “pressure to increase membership and revenue.” That’s an alarming assumption. A PRSA Treasurer should be focused on accurate, factual, and legally compliant reporting of PRSA financials, not “pressure” to make the numbers “increase.” I’m now seriously questioning how on earth Mr. Waetke responded to this NomCom question, that he indeed snagged the PRSA Treasurer slot.
- Example: the pre-scripted question targeting Christopher Yandle, Ph.D., APR, (No. 10) bakes in a false and ludicrous presumption that something else has to be “deprioritize(d)” in order for PRSA simply to create programming “that bridges theoretical education with real-world application,” the latter of which was rightfully and wisely advocated by Dr. Yandle. The very nature of this irresponsibly obtuse question reflects, in my view, a degree of gross incompetence by the NomCom questioner, which I’m sure did not work to Dr. Yandle’s benefit in later NomCom deliberations.
It’s remarkable that multiple questions asked by NomCom of the 2025 PRSA Board candidates openly disclose that PRSA is losing members with “declining membership.”
(The specifics of this fact have otherwise has been a closely held secret by PRSA, in violation of New York Not for Profit Corporation Law, which requires accurate, audited, year-over-year membership tallies presented at each National Assembly voting delegation.)
Yet PRSA Leadership has given false assurances (and even falsified / legally noncompliant “data”) to PRSA’s Assembly delegation for years on this point, even communicating opposite information and painting a false picture of a thriving (or at least stable) PR trade association, such as in these bogus Assembly Minutes from 2023 (noting you served that year as “Secretary,” Heide, and you listed not only Mr. Sims as “Treasurer” but also Mr. Abreu as “Treasurer,” falsely):
Speaking of PRSA’s Secretary role…
On a separate page of 2025 NomCom documents, special questions for the PRSA Secretary officer slot asks only two questions.
One is completely sophomoric, as if the NomCom were interviewing a freshman-year PR intern (“Describe an occasion when you had to manage your time to complete a task”).
The other one is painfully ironic, given PRSA’s multi-year history dating back at least to 2016 under then-PRSA Chair-Elect Jane Dvorak’s term, of gross PRSA officer violations of “compliance with governing documents,” such as PRSA’s Social Media Policy.
Legally audio-recorded call / Tony D’Angelo – 2017 (1):
Legally audio-recorded call / Tony D’Angelo – 2017 (2):
Heide and Matt:
It should also be explained to the 2026 PRSA Assembly delegation why a recent college graduate was allowed to stand as a candidate to run for a PRSA National Board governance voting seat (competing against exceedingly more experienced MBAs, APRs, and Ph.Ds who also were standing as candidates).
It appears 2025 NomCom Chair Michelle Egan allowed one candidate, Sankalp Sharma, to stand as a PRSA board candidate, even though Mr. Sharma had only graduated from college in 2024 (whereas PRSA bylaws require other rank-and-file PRSA members to have amassed “20 or more years” “experience as a public relations or communications professional” in order to be deemed fit for PRSA National Board director candidacy).
Mr. Sharma apparently had an entire “documentary” made about himself, not long ago… replete with “Trailer,” which stylistically reeks of propaganda, in my view:
Ray Day had already made Mr. Sharma an appointed “senior counsel” to the 2025 National Board, even though Mr. Sharma had only graduated from college the prior year.
(Notably, following the infliction of Ray Day’s 2025 PRSA Chairmanship, we have since learned PRSA is now in a financial / operational emergency and on the rumored brink of insolvency.)
Mr. Sharma cites on his LinkedIn that he is an “author” of two books, sold with proceeds said to benefit “charity.”
However, according to the “Strength in Color” book by Mr. Sharma, as posted via Amazon for sale at $5, the “charities” supported are all “BLM movement” (Black Lives Matter) so-called “charities,” even though numerous BLM affiliates have been the subject of federal DOJ and state investigations, indictments, prosecution, and conviction.
BLM / network affiliates are also widely known as a front group for partisan political left-wing extremism (including sponsored acts of community violence / rioting) operationalized under “DEI” monikers such as precisely those that PRSA forces down the throats of its own members.
While Mr. Sharma is indeed accomplished as a 2024 university PR grad and deserves to be encouraged as a rising professional, the PRSA-posted online bio for Mr. Sharma appears to significantly overstate his roles with a variety of organizations, whereas his LinkedIn otherwise cites he simply served as an “intern” (like at FINN).
For example, PRSA’s website hypes various roles held by Mr. Sharma as if Mr. Sharma were leading / “handling” high-level tasks at management seniority, when in fact, Mr. Sharma was simply interning (by title and / or by practical function).
This bio below may have been written by PRSA and not Mr. Sharma, so Mr. Sharma may very well have been a victim here of PRSA’s own miscommunication. I welcome PRSA / Mr. Sharma (copied) to chime in and clarify.
https://www.prsa.org/prssa/about-prssa/leadership-contacts/prsa-board-liaison-ray-day
Heide – I noticed that for 2026, as a consolation prize for not being chosen in 2025 for the PRSA Board, Mr. Sharma scored a slot on PRSA’s NomCom himself this year, so that he can help control who next year’s PRSA leaders are.
I presume you placed Mr. Sharma in this powerful role as a new college grad + BLM supporter, so that he can learn all the “inside baseball” of NomCom and embedded DEI sausage-making, so that he’s a shoo-in for next time.
The politics you all are trafficking in keeps getting increasingly obscene and painfully obvious, Heide.
Meanwhile, PRSA’s finances are going down the sewer, and the PR industry is increasingly embarrassed and undermined by what PRSA’s National leadership apparatus has become.
In sum, Heide and Matt:
PRSA’s DEI activities should be investigated and brought into legal compliance, at the alternate risk of many PRSA members otherwise getting fired or cited for job violations to their employment agreements by way of their direct involvement in PRSA’s DEI shenanigans (oftentimes, unwittingly).
My blog includes other details, for the public record:
https://www.marybethwest.com/category/ethics/prsa-ethics-misconduct
You (and anyone in receipt of this post) are invited to contact me if you wish to have a comment added to my blog or wish to submit any clarifying information. As per usual, statements in my blog and correspondences are backed up with copious documentation.
In the near term, Heide, you need to produce a record documenting how many Central Arkansas Water utility ratepayer dollars have gone to pay your PRSA bills since 2023.
If you don’t produce that basic transparency and report it, then someone else will. It’s all discoverable.
Thanks,
Mary Beth
Mary Beth West has documented how the PRSA PR trade association has been in steep decline every since its partisan turn to left-wing politics, amid concurrent ethics violations by PRSA National Board and executive staff leaders.