A series of lectures discussing different aspects of public relations were presented on Saturday at the Public Relations Student Society of America Midwest Regional Partners Conference.

Attendees were given a wide variety of choices on what to attend, because the schedule allowed four of the 17 speakers to lecture at once in different rooms.

Guest speaker Kevin Kellems, special adviser for the deputy secretary of defense, justified the president’s decision to invade Iraq in his speech, which launched the convention.

“Rather than talk about process, it was important to go straight to the substance on why we are in Iraq,” Kellems said.

“Our mission, Operation Iraqi Freedom, is to defend the American people, eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass terror and liberate the Iraqi people,” Kellems said. “The United States did not seek this conflict. Indeed, for 12 patient but determined years, we pursued every possible means to avoid it.”

He ran a video that featured Iraqis in the United States who were working on a plan to develop a democratic government in Iraq. Kellems said he wanted to give Iraqis the opportunity to be heard.

Kellems said the Iraqi regime supports terrorist organizations including al-Qaida.

“Disarming regimes before they can arm terrorists is, therefore, an essential objective,” he said. “Atrocities of this regime should remove any doubt that our actions are ignoble.”

Kellems spoke of Iraqi soldiers disguising themselves as civilians or feigning surrender to draw American troops into ambushes.

He said the American men and women in Iraq are fighting ferociously and ethically.

“For anyone who complains about long hours, it is nothing compared to the soldiers sleeping in foxholes overseas,” Kellems said.

Another speaker, Tom Katzenmeyer, vice president of communications and investor relations for Limited Brands, conducted two lectures. His first covered when to act in a crisis, and the second discussed fashion public relations and marketing.

Ohio State’s PRSSA is affiliated with four other universities to make up the Central Ohio PRSSA.

Steinberg said Ohio University hosted the convention last year at the Buckeye Hall of Fame, with 80 attendees. Two hundred and forty people signed up for the convention on Saturday.

“We went full-bore on this,” said Dan Steinberg, adviser for PRSSA. “There are normally four speakers at each year’s convention, but there were 17 this year.”

Many of the speakers were from contacts made on various field trips, he said.

Steinberg said students in PRSSA put the entire convention together.

“There were about 30 or 40 of them working 12 hours a day since October. I simply directed them,” he said.

OSU PRSSA obtained special permission from the central chapter in New York City to make the convention regional. Fifteen universities from the Midwest attended.

Steinberg said OSU hosted the convention five years before, but it was on a much smaller scale.

Brain Dieterle, a senior in communication and a member of PRSSA, said it was easy to tailor the conference to his own interests by planning to listen to the speakers that appealed to him most.

Most of the speakers had a background in public relations, either directly or indirectly.