Island Park woman becomes first Idahoan to receive national communications honor
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ISLAND PARK — An Island Park woman whose communications career has taken her from covering the Teton Dam disaster and Yellowstone fires to nuclear research and space missions has received the highest honor awarded by the National Federation of Press Women.
Teri Hillyard Ehresman received the 2026 Communicator of Achievement Award during NFPW’s annual conference Sept. 24-26 in Ellicott City, Maryland.
“I was thrilled to receive the Communicator of Achievement award,” Ehresman told EastIdahoNews.com. “It is the top award given by NFPW.”
The award has been presented to one person annually since 1957, and Ehresman is the first person from Idaho to receive it.
A career spanning five decades
For Ehresman, the honor caps a communications career that began in eastern Idaho more than 50 years ago.
A native of Idaho Falls, Ehresman earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and journalism from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She joined the Idaho Falls Post Register in 1975 and worked as a reporter and regional editor until 1990.
During her years at the newspaper, she established three regional news bureaus covering an 11-county area of central and eastern Idaho.
She also helped guide coverage of some of the region’s biggest stories, including the 1976 collapse of the Teton Dam and the devastating flooding that followed. In 1988, she was part of a team nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Yellowstone National Park wildfires.
Ehresman made a major career change in 1990 when she joined the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, where she worked until retiring in 2015. She describes her role there as communications director for “all things nuclear.”
“I loved my job and the many opportunities it gave me to share the research going on at INL,” she said. “Some smart and talented people work there.”
Her work involved translating highly technical subjects involving nuclear research, science and technology into information the public could understand. She also helped coordinate communications for major national and international nuclear energy projects and events.
Her work even extended into space exploration. Ehresman helped coordinate communications surrounding the New Horizons mission and the Mars Science Laboratory’s Curiosity rover launch.
Still going strong
Retirement didn’t exactly mean slowing down.
Ehresman later accepted a presidential appointment to an Idaho citizens advisory board dealing with energy-related issues and became the first person who was not an engineer or scientist to be elected chair of the Idaho Section of the American Nuclear Society.
She also maintains public information pages covering issues affecting Yellowstone National Park, the Tetons, Island Park, and Fremont County.
Ehresman has been a member of Media Network Idaho and NFPW for 50 years. She served as national NFPW president from 2013 to 2015 and has advised several presidents since then.
She has also helped with national conferences, served six years as the organization’s national communications contest director and currently directs its national high school communications contest.
Ehresman said working with young journalists through the contest has been especially rewarding.
“It is wonderful to see the work being done by high school journalists,” she said.
Her decades with NFPW have formed friendships that extend well beyond professional networking.
“My NFPW friends have become family, and many love coming to visit me in Island Park and enjoy our beautiful area,” Ehresman said. “I am thankful for the recognition given to me by this professional organization.”
Now in its 89th year, the National Federation of Press Women is a nationwide organization for professionals working throughout journalism and communications.
Sherry Thompson of Omaha, Nebraska, was runner-up for the 2026 award. Other nominees represented professional communications organizations in Kansas, New Mexico, North Dakota and Virginia.