St. Elizabeth Church at 6077 Sharon Woods Blvd., Columbus, OH 43229 US - Vicki Wells Bedard honored with the Presidential Medallion Award

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The 2010 Catholic Media Convention sponsored by the Catholic Press Association (CPA) took place in New Orleans, LA recently. The event featured several Catholic Media presentations, workshops, and awards presentations. The 2010 President’s Medallion from the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals is their highest honor, recognizes lifetime achievement and service to Catholic communications. Vicki Wells Bedard was presented the award this year for her work in diocesan communications over the last 25 years. 

Vicki urged an audience of Catholic media professionals in New Orleans to help her share her voice about a rare disease called Frontotemporal Dementia, which she suffers from and affects about 250,000 other Americans. Her condition, also known as Pick's disease, is a progressively degenerative neurological disease similar to Alzheimer's for which there is no known cure. She battled various symptoms for "five years of hell," as she described it. It wasn’t until about a year ago when her condition was diagnosed.

Vicki was speechless about receiving the award. She said, “There are days that I am speechless anyway. So I thought it was important to say that right up front." Vicki recorded her acceptance speech on video, and was present at the luncheon, held during the joint convention of the Catholic Press Association and the academy. Faith magazine helped fund the trip to the convention for Vicki and her daughters.

"As church communicators we know how important it is to give voice to the voiceless," she said during the awards luncheon. "Help me tell more people about this terrible disease, this dementia so often missed or misdiagnosed until it's too advanced," she said. "A communicator needs a voice—that voice can take many forms."

Her acceptance speech and her effort to walk up to the stage afterward to receive the plaque was an emotional moment at the luncheon. She received at least a couple of standing ovations. Father Charles Irvin was on hand to witness the award presentation, and was floored during the event. Father Charlie called the ceremony, “a tremendous success”, and stated “Her award ceremony is something I'll never forget.”

Frank Morock, director of communications for the Diocese of Raleigh, N.C. and the academy's president, presented the award to Vicki (see right). He called her one of the "true leaders in Catholic media." Morock called Bedard a “trailblazer” especially for promoting "use of computer technology and the Internet for church ministry."

"Beginning as a parish secretary—a position that is at the heart of the local church—she began to understand the important role communications can play," he said. Her efforts to make Internet access "available to dioceses and parishes, both small and large, when many at the time were not convinced that the Internet had any place in church ministry mainly because it seemed so frightening and so secular," Morock said.

"But there is another side to Vicki—she is also a mother and a grandmother," Morock continued. Pick's disease, he said, has presented her with "the toughest challenge of her life."

She and others suffering from Pick's, "a dementia that science dubbed the disease of the 21st century", are creating their own documentaries and blogs and whatever they can to spread the message. Another way includes begging for research and donating "our brains at death," she said, "to unlock what mystery this is to stop it from reaching into our families and friends and all those we love."

Her current ministry, she said, has been to find those who suffer from Pick's and their caregivers "and network us together." "I believe we need to share our stories while we can and to walk the road to our death with dignity and to express our fears, our failures, our shame-filled times, and to laugh," she said.

With the help of an associate professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, Jim Coyle, Vicki has launched a blog called Vicki's Voice, at http://vickisvoice.tv/, to connect those with Pick's and share resources.

She asked the Catholic media professionals in the audience "to extend my voice beyond what it can reach."

"The stories on Vicki's Voice are much like the stories we've been telling for a long time about the suffering and triumphs of the human person," she said. "They are stories that perhaps have not been told. If you can I will be so grateful to have you carry this with me.

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