American Legion Post 284 Public Relations Officer and Historian, Retired Maj. Richard M. "Dick" Cole, USAF, has won first place in The American Legion Media Alliance's 2024 annual contest with his monthly post newsletter, "News and Views." Cole also won the first-place award for newsletters produced by posts with more than 760 members in 2021.

Cole was selected in March to receive the 2024 Marquis Who's Who Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. Cole was one of the five percent of 2024 Who’s Who listees given the Lifetime Achievement Award based upon his career longevity, philanthropic endeavors and lasting contributions to society.

Drawing on more than four decades of experience in the field of communications and public relations, Cole specializes in employee and member communications. He is a retired Air Force major and a retired federal government GS-15 public affairs officer. During his government service, he edited, designed and published numerous award-winning government publications, including the former On-Site Inspection Agency’s "On-Site Insights," the National Wildlife Refuge System’s "Refuge Update," Naval Sea Systems Command’s "NAVSEA Observer," the Navy’s Surface Warfare Directorate (N-86) bimonthly "Surface Warfare" magazine, the Defense Contract Management Agency’s "Communicator" magazine and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s magazine, "The Shield."

His last government position was Director of Public Affairs for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Fort Belvoir, Va. He retired from federal service in 2013.

During his professional career, Cole received 41 communications awards for government magazines and newsletters he produced from numerous professional organizations including the League of American Communications Professionals, Association for Publication Excellence, Hermes Creative Awards, Institute for Marketing Communications (MarCom Awards), the National Association of Government Communicators, The Public Relations Society of America and the Association of Women in Communications.

Cole volunteered his time to produce newsletters and periodicals for several organizations over the years in addition to writing two aviation books—The Great Book of Fighter Planes: The World’s Warbirds (Publications International Ltd., ISBN: 0-517-03598-7) and The Bell 47/H-13/HUL-1/HTL-1 Sioux (Walter P. Stevens Publications) and contributing photos to 19 others.