ANGELINA DOHRE
Photo Editor
This past Thursday, a public memorial service was held for long-time communication professor Ann Carden, who died on May 4 of this year, following a lengthy battle with cancer. It was sponsored by Fredonia’s communication department, with the help of Department Chair Mark Kiyak and communication professor Jane Jackson.
Carden graduated from Martinsburg High School in 1976. She attended college at West Virginia University where she graduated in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism. Later, she received a master’s degree in public relations management from Buffalo State.
Her career in broadcasting began at WRNR in Martinsburg where she worked as news director. Carden moved to Buffalo, New York in 1982, and she became a news anchor at WEBR all-news radio. After working at several other radio stations in the area, she decided to find a career in public relations.
During the next 16 years, she worked at several nonprofit healthcare organizations and later ran her own public relations consulting firm, ARC Communications.
Beginning her career at Fredonia in 2002, Carden was an assistant professor and helped develop the public relations major for the communication department. She was promoted in 2013 to associate professor and was awarded the President’s Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award in 2017.
Retired communication professor Linda Brigance knew Carden for more than 15 years.
“I appreciated and respected her as colleague in the communication department and loved her as a friend,” she said. “Because we both came from a public relations background, we had a similar perspective on a lot of things and had wonderful conversations.”
Brigance recalls fondly on the conversations the two of them had during work. “Our offices were just down the hall from each other,” she said. “One semester, when the office between ours was empty, we used to joke that we could just tap out Morse Code on the walls if we wanted to ‘talk.’”
According to Brigance, there was nothing Carden enjoyed more than going on road trips and this led her to one of her research passions — the cultural history of U.S. Route 66. She also loved rock music and attended lots of concerts.
Brigance claims Carden’s real hobby was people.
“Family and friends were very important to Ann,” she said. “She was so proud of her father, who was a pilot and flew into his 90s, was close to her sister and, of course, she loved her children. She was very proud of them and travelled to visit them whenever she could.”
Senior journalism major Megan Howes said she only met Carden twice in person, but had constant communication with her over the four month period of Howes’s internship.
“She was my internship coordinator,” she said. “Over those four months we became close. She impacted me in a lot of ways; I actually have a tattoo in remembrance of her.”
According to Howes, Carden was one of the most amazing people she will ever meet.
“She would call me and leave voicemails saying she was sorry she couldn’t reach me because she was driving,” she said. “What I didn’t know is that she was driving to and from cancer treatment. There was an issue during my internship and she fought like hell for me, while fighting for her life. That’s something I can never repay.”
Associate professor Elmer Ploetz recalls his favorite memory with Carden.
“My favorite memory with Ann was going to see Todd Rundgren at the Town Ballroom in Buffalo a couple of years ago,” he said. “Rundgren was one of her favorites and a friend of mine who books the club gave us the owners seats. It was a fun show, but I suspect she would have preferred to have been down in the crowd where the people were dancing!”
Howes said Carden changed her life, made her strong and fought for her in ways she could never repay. “Seeing the impact of her passing is something I won’t be forgetting,” she said. “When I heard of her passing, I knew that I lost a friend. I only hope I can make half the impact on someone as she did on me and everyone else around her.”