WASHINGTON-NAFCU recently received the "Golden Thinker Award"from the North American Prcis Syndicate for a column on car-buyingtips. NAFCU Vice President of Communications Jay Morris was giventhe award by NAPS for NAFCU's "Car Loan Quiz" consumer column. WhenNAPS released the column, it generated 840 newspaper placementswith a total readership of over 94 million people. NAPS is aservice that provides camera-ready features and articles toAmerica's community newspapers. NAPS Vice President Jonathan Simonpresented Morris with the award. "The Golden Thinker Award fromNAPS reflects Jay's hard work in furthering communications for ourcredit union members," NAFCU President and CEO Fred Beckercommented. "Every time one of these releases is placed in anewspaper, more people in cities and towns across America readabout the credit union message." He pointed to NAFCU's push to getmore credit union news in the mainstream media with success in theWall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Post. The columnplaced in the top one-fourth of 1% of all releases distributedthrough NAPS last year. NAPS clients include Fortune 500 companies,over 100 associations, all top 12 public relations firms and over1,600 NAPS accounts in all. "I think the success of this column isa testament to how popular cars are in America and how autofinancing has become an important consumer topic," Morris said."The column also points out the advantages of financing through acredit union, which is an important message for consumers tounderstand." NAFCU piggybacked on the success of the NAPS columnwith a radio media tour in the spring of 2004 that featured liveand taped interviews of Becker on the pitfalls of zero-zerofinancing and the advantages of credit union auto financing.