2007 Hall of Fame: Two New Winners Announced

Here is the announcement recently posted on the Creating Keepsakes website:

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“Welcome to Creating Keepsakes’ Scrapbook Hall of Fame section. Each year, we induct 25 of the top scrapbookers.

Below is our revised list of winners for the 2007 Hall of Fame contest.

Shortly after publication of our 2007 Hall of Fame special issue, we discovered errors in the affidavits that were submitted, and in our processing of the winning entries.

We requested that all winners review the rules and re-evaluate their submissions for conformance. As a result, one winner was disqualified, one voluntarily stepped down, and several others reviewed with us, in detail, the process they followed in composing and taking their photos. To fill vacated positions, two new winners were chosen, based on point values from the original score sheets. For background information about this issue, click here.

Congratulations to our 2007 Scrapbook Hall of Famers!”
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So, the “disqualified” person was Kristina Contes as we all know. And apparently the person who “voluntarily stepped down” was Bernadette Henderson. As for “..several others reviewed with us, in detail, the process they followed in composing and taking their photos,” I assume one of these was Mitchell Kraft whose entry included photos of him on a horse (still can’t figure THAT one out). Anyhow, the new winners are Barb Pfeffer and Angela Spangler. A big HEE-YA and CONGRATS and WHOO HOO to those ladies…

Okay, we know what happened with Kristina, her DQ, and her response or explanation of the situation. Now there’s the Bernadette drama, which I have seen played out on CKMB, 2peas, and various blogs. But again, just as the gossip girl that I am (not a highly qualifed reporter or anything), the problem appears to be the famous river rafting shot Bernadette used in one of her HOF layouts. The problem was: she was IN the raft. Of course, she was questioned about how she could have taken the shot, and apparently gave some explanation involving tripods and timers and digital editing. Well, just like with CK’s original explanation for Kristina’s photo…no one was buyin’ it. I only saw one of the posts that responded to her explanation, but it was a very long and detailed disection of her statements and how they couldn’t possibly be true based on photographic principals that were so far above my head it wasn’t funny. Okay, I’m gonna’ wait here while you go read THE POST I’M TALKING ABOUT.

(just sittin here waiting….doo-dee-doo….hmmm…bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you….la la la…hmmm, I need some coffee…zzzzzzzzz….oh, wha?…ok, you’re back!)

I mean, that alone had me convinced but then the post-er mentioned that she had contacted the river rafting company used by Ms. Henderson and some kind of digital number assigned to the photo in the layout matched up with the series of photos taken by the river rafting company that day. At first, I didn’t know whether to believe that or not. I mean, was this just someone trying so hard to discredit the photo, they would make unsupported statements? Or could they really have gone to the extent to contact the rafting company and how did they figure out the digital number of Bernadette’s photo anyway?

Well, then about a week ago, Bernadette made this post on 2peas:

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“I apologize for my absence, but from all the posts written about me I am sure you can understand that most of these boards, private messages and emails have been the last place I’ve wanted to spend much time lately. Whether on purpose or not some of you have said some very mean statements about me that I feel are totally untrue and I can’t begin to tell you the pain I have gone through and witnessed others go through over the last couple of weeks. I apologize if something I have said or done has in some way done any of you or anyone any wrong. This is and has never been my intention.

As someone who spent a bit too much time learning the theory behind communication, I am really sad that so many of my posts were interpreted incorrectly. It looks like I need to go out and spend some money brushing up with some practical communication courses instead of spending so much on scrap supplies (smile). I will not go further into detail on the misinterpretations because from the fire storm of comments that have been made it has been proven that anything I say will be twisted, misconstrued and then held against me and this was not what I expected or was hoping for when I made those original posts. In the context of being asked how someone COULD do something and how I DID do it, there was a lot of liberty used in interpreting my statements by not only connecting the wrong dots, but creating dots that do not even exist. This whole episode would be a perfect case study for that communication course I would love to take.

To all those that have supported me through this whole ordeal, I send out my warmest thoughts. I will never be able to express to you how valuable you have been in helping me to keep my sanity. Helping me keep my faith in the “industry.” Helping me to realize that in the bigger picture, this isn’t what scrapbooking is about. This isn’t what I’m about.

For those that truly know me I feel very comfortable that you know I have very high moral values. When I entered the HOF contest and throughout this ordeal, I 110% felt that I was following all the rules and in no way felt that I was going to somehow slide something by someone. I also don’t believe any of the other HOF winners would intentionally violate any rules set out by CK in an effort to game the system. And above all else, I believe CK is a highly reputable company and would never jeopardize their reputation by intentionally overlooking rules for any contestant or entry when there are so many fantastically talented, reputable, ready women and men who could have just as easily been HOF on any given day.

With that said I will raise the white surrender flag and officially announce that I have withdrawn my HOF entry for 2007. This was a very hard decision, but when I stepped back and looked at the bigger picture, at what scrapbooking and sharing memories was becoming, this was clearly the right decision for me, for the contest, and for the sake of us continuing to be able to share our memories with friends and family. With each other. As a wise woman passed on knowledge from her mother to me, in this tug of war, it is time to put down the rope.

Again after all that has taken place I am hesitant to post. Agree or disagree with my decision, I do hope you will have a blessed day. Or at least a somewhat happier day. I hope this will bring you some closure. I hope you will keep perspective. I hope you’ll be inspired by the fantastic work presented in the HOF book this year and for the years to come. I hope you will keep on scrapping and sharing. I know that is exactly my plan…to keep on scrapping and sharing. To keep perspective.”
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Okay, I knew nothing of this person prior to hearing about this 2nd HOF scandal. But from the above post, she sounds like a cool person, good hearted, caring, sensitive like the rest of us. Her scrapbooking is phenomenal.

Here are some of her layouts from the CK Gallery:

However, she doesn’t really say one way or the other whether she purposely entered a bogus photo (i.e. cheated) in the 2007 HOF contest, whether she supports her prior statements about taking the photo herself, or whether she’s sorry that she lied (if she did) to so many people. Like with Kristina, I completely feel for the heartache she must be going through right now. I imagine the negative e-mails and MB posts directed toward her must get pretty ugly. Although I feel free to examine these “scandals” and “issues” on my blog, I hope I remain fair and professional about how I do it, because MY intention is not to hurt anyone. I just like to start the discussion and see how y’all are feeling about it. That said, if someone lied or cheated to get or keep some fleeting scrapbook “fame”, then I feel sorry for them and hope they get some perspective soon. I honestly think that if I had been in either of their shoes, I would have slunk away with my tail between my legs the first time someone looked at me cross-eyed. It would go something like this:

Mr. CK big shot: “Miss ScrapbookObsession, did you R-E-A-L-L-Y take this photo??”.
Me: (GULP!) “Ummmm…..errrrr….wellllll….(gulp)….No sir, I didn’t. Here are all your prizes back. Buh-bye!”

Actually I kind of drive my loved ones crazy with how overly moral I can be – fun nicknames I have are: Miss Can-do-no-wrong, car seat police, What-Are-You, Perfect?, and Mom to the World. See, I’m annoying about it. But I just believe that old fashioned adage about nothing ill gotten being worth the gain. If you have to cheat or lie or take to get something you want, you won’t enjoy it anyway so don’t bother. Personally, I like to sleep at night. I just wish everyone felt that way so we had HOF’ers and SOY’ers and MMM’ers that we could 100% look up to and respect. I hope that, if nothing else, this whole thing leads to tighter rules and people being more afraid to break them just to win.