Business Focus Briefs Wortham becomes second woman deputy treasurer iffale Treasurer Richard Moore has announced that Pam Wortham has accepted the position of deputy state treasurer and director of the Financial Operations Division for the Department of State Treasurer. Wortham is only the second woman to be named a deputy treasurer in the history of the Department of the STUt# Treasurer. As chief financier officer for the department, Wortham will oversee the state's banking operations as well as departmental accounting and fiscal opera tions. "After an exhaustive search, 1 could not be more pleased to elevate one of our own, Pam Wortham," Moore said. "We have officially broken the glass ceiling in a department historically dominated 4>y men." Moore appointed Janice Burke the first female deputy treasurer in 2003. WSJS wins awards WSJS has again been recognized as having the "best newscast" in North and South Carolina, by the Electronic News Association of the Carolinas (HNAC). In the awards handed out June 12 in 'Charlotte, WSJS News swept the Radio Division 1 "best news cast" category, winning both first place and silver awards. The winning news Darryl Hunt casts snowcasea coverage ot breaking news, for an ice storm on Feb. 17, 2003; and the Dec. 24. 2003, release of Darryl Hunt from prison after the Winston-Salem man served 18 years for a murder he did not commit. WSJS News also won first place in the "spot news" cate gory, for its Christmas Eve coverage of Hunt's release. In U/C1C Mot./c won first place in the "political/election" category, for its Nov. 4, 2003, coverage of area municipal elections. WSJS News also won two other silver awards at the annual ENAC Convention. One was in the "gen eral news" category, for coverage of President Bush's visit to Winston-Salem on Nov. 7, 2003. The other was in the "feature'.' category, for a story pro duced on a December snowstorm. ENAC is one of the nation's largest regional news organizations. The contest was open to broad casters in both North and South Carolina. Women's conference is June 26 On Saturday, June 26, at 8 a.m., -Carolina Pinna cle Studios will host "The Spirit-Filled Woman... Renewed in Body, Soul and Spirit" Women's Conference. The event, sponsored by Pin nau^Ministries of Yancey ville Inc., will take place on^pnd stage B, 336 W. Main Street in Yanceyville. and all | women are encouraged to attend. "We are so blessed to have the anointed women of God who are speakers and round table facilitators for this year's conference," said event co chair Dale Blackwell-Coons. Other co-chairs for this event include Minister Helen Styles of Burlington, N.C. irving There will be a precious time for fellowship with worship and praise before the opening session at 9 a.m. Prophetess Kimberly Turner from Dallas, Texas; Minister Gloria Irving from Durham,. N.C. : and Dr. Mildred Thompson of Collinsville, Va., will be ministering as well as oth ers. The roundtable facilitators are Anne Watling ton, Alecia Walker and Minister Latasha Blackwell. Patti Currie and the Belview Praise & Worship Team will minister in music. Registration will begin at 8 a.m. Praise and wor ship will take place at 8:30 a.m. with the program running from 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Registration is $15, which includes lunch. For more' information, call (336) 694-4767 or go to www.carolinapinna clestudios.com. Radio executive Launa Thompson dies at 52 CHICAGO (AP) - Launa Thompson, station and sales manager of WGCI-AM, Chicago's top rated music station, died Sunday at age 52 after a brief illness. Thompson, who was hailed by the Chicago Sun Times as one of the most powerful women in Chica go media, was also manager of WVAZ-FM and the gospel station WGRB. the former WGCI-FM. All three are Clear Channel stations. "This is a sad day for all of us in the Cliar Chan nel family," said John Gehron, regional vice presi dent of Clear Channel Radio. The three stations grossed more than $38 million in 1999. and Clear Channel estimated that Thomp son and her staff had generated more than $200 mil lion in sales revenue in the eight years since she became general sales manager of WGCI in 1996. The trade publication Radio Ink recently named Thompson as one of the most influential African Americans in radio. Woman sues over credit score firing Illl \S\(X IATED PR I ss NEWARK, NJ. - Pharmaceu tical giant Johnson & Johnson has been accused of racial discrimina tion by a black woman who said she was denied a position as a paralegal because of her credit rating Brenda Matthews filed a com plaint recently with the federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission in Newark. In it. she says she was offered a job as a legal assistant in the company's patent office in October 2003, only to have the offer rescinded after a credit check. ? Lawyers for Matthews, 27, of Newark, assert that blacks historical ly have had fewer opportunities to obtain credit and that using credit among hiring criteria amounts to racial discrimination. Matthews' lawyers, who include Bill Lan Lee. a former assistant U.S. attorney gener al for civil rights, say there are no data linking credit ratings to job per formance. Johnson & Johnson issued a statement in which it declined to comment on the allegations. The statement did say that "Johnson & Johnson has entered into an arrangement with the EEOC for the prompt resolution of such employment issues and looks forward to resolv ing this matter to the sat isfaction of all involved." The statement also said Matthews had applied for a job it described as a "tax spe cialist^ position involv ing the timely payment of fees necessary to maintain Johnson & Johnson's global patent estate." A separate lawsuit pending against Johnson & Johnson in U.S. Bill Lan Lee District Court in New Jerseycharges that the company s poli cies artd practices have kept black and Hispanic employees out of execu tive positions. Compared with white workers, the suit alleges, blacks and Hispanics receive lower salaries and fewer merit increases, cash bonuses, stock awards and stock options. The suit involves three plaintiffs and seeks designation as a class action. The company has denied the allegations in the lawsuit. N.C Division of Tourism The burgeoning skyline of the city of Charlotte. Bright Lights, Best Cities Magazine names Charlotte one of best towns for blacks SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE Black Enterprise recently revealed its 2004 list of the Top Cities for African-Americans to Live, Work and Play. The top picks were culled from more than 4.000 interactive surveys completed on www.blackenterprise.com and by editorial staff evaluations. Survey respondents placed a high priori ty on income earnings potential, cost of living, housing prices and entrepreneurial opportunities. When BE first published the list in 2001, four of the top 10 cities were in the South. This year seven out of 10 are below the Mason-Dixon Line. Five out of 10 have a black mayor, and all have a black population of at least 25 percent. Eight of 10 have a cost-of-living index that is less than the national average. Seven cities have returned to the list in 2004, while Philadel phia, Chicago and Detroit have fallen off the list. Newcomers are Nashville, Tenn.; Birmingham. Ala.; and Columbus, Ohio. Atlanta, Ga? ranks as the No. 1 city for African-Americans, driven primarily by entrepreneur ial opportunities, earnings poten tial and cultural activities. Future job growth is strong at 23 per cent, and Atlanta is home to a high number of black-owned businesses. African-Americans make up 61 percent of Atlanta's population. Washington. D.C., ranks as the No. 2 city. Sixty percent of African-Americans who consti tute the city's total population are among the nation's best edu cated and highest paid. It has the second lowest black unemploy ment rate, 7.6 percent, of the top 10 well below the national aver age of 10.2 percent. Dallas. Texas, returns to the best cities list at No. 3, up from No. 8 in 2001 . Dallas placed third among the top 10 cities in median household income for black fam ilies, future job growth and black high school graduation rate. Nashville. Tenn., ranked No. 4. with a low cost of living as the city's biggest draw. Only Hous ton and Memphis have lower cost-of-living indices. Houston. Texas, ranks No. 5 primarily because of residents' high satisfaction with quality of life. Formerly No. I, Houston's drop is due to its above average median cost index and its higher unemployment add violent crime rates. Charlotte. N.C., appears again on the top cities list, falling two spots to No. 6. Charlotte earned high marks for cost of living, diversity and economic growth. The city is a youthful, mobile hub for professionals (the median age is 32.8), and future job growth is fairly strong at 18.7 percent. Birmingham. Ala., ranks at No. 7. Birmingham is the least populous city among the top 10 but has a city population that is nearly 75 percent African-Ameri cans. While race relations are a concern for residents, the city boasts the highest percentage of African-American homeowners, 58 percent, among the top 10. Rounding out the top 10 are Memphis. Tenn., ranked at No. 8; Columbus, Ohio, ranked at No. 9; and Baltimore. Md., ranked at No. 10. Grant supports black college news service SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE NEW YORK -The Johns, and James L. Knight Founda tion has awarded a $200,000 grant to NABJ to support Black College Wire, an online news service for and about students at historically black colleges and universities, NABJ President Herbert Lowe announced recently. The one-year award will enable Black College Wire to continue its cur r e n t operation and add new fea Lowe tures to its Web site (http://www.blackcollegewire.o rg / ), including audio streaming and First Amendment Watch, a new student project that will monitor and report on censor ship at black colleges, Lowe said. The grant also will fund summer internships at black owned community newspapers, he said. The Web site was launched in September 2002 with a pre vious grant from Knight Foun dation. "NABJ is happy to support Black College Wire and link prominently to it from our asso ciation's Web site," said Lowe, a courts reporter at Newsday in New York. "Anything NABJ can do to augment its own serv ices and programs for aspiring black journalists, we must and will do. My thanks to Knight Foundation and Black College Wire for helping us do more for students." Black College Wire was founded by Pearl Stewart, for mer chairperson of the Black College Communication Asso ciation (BCCA), an organiza tion of journalism faculty mem bers at historically black institu tions. The grant represents a partnership between NABJ and BCCA and is designed to increase the number of African Americans being hired as jour See Grant on A9 Time Warner head honored by A Better Chance group SPI ( I \i. [O I HI CHRONIC) I NEW YORK - A Better Chance, the national resource for identifying, recruiting and developing leaders among academically gifted students of color, recently presented the A Better Chance Corporate Award to Richard D. Parsons, chairman and chief executive officer of Time Warner Inc., at its annual awards luncheon. Ed Bradley. "60 Minutes" co-edi tor and correspondent, emceed the gala event at the Waldorf-Astoria. As a testament to his commit ment to public service and the com munity, Parsons was co-chair of President George Herbert Walker Bush's bipartisan Social Security Commission, and he chairs the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corp.. which was set up to spur business development and job creation in Harlem He is also chairman of the Apollo Theater Foundation and sits on the boards of several companies, including Citi group. Estee Lauder and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; arts organizations, including the Museum of Modern Art; and Howard Univer sity. Parsons has been affiliated with Time Warner since 1991. when he joined the company's board of direc tors. He became Time Warner's pres ident in February 1995 and later served as the company's co-chief operating officer. He became CEO in May 2002 and chairman of the board in May 2003. Parsons said, "I am most honored by this award. A Better Chance plays a growing and increasingly vital role in opening opportunities to the nation's lop college preparatory and public high schools. I strongly sup port this organization's mission and look forward to even more students of color benefiting from the best edu Sec Parsons on A9 File Rk*o Richard Parsons shakes hand with President Bush during a trip to the White House in 2001,