More than 500 people from around the nation gathered in Dallas Sept. 9-11 for the third ACES conference.

It also marked some firsts for the organization: the first election and the first scholarships.

The conference took place over three days at downtown Dallas' Union Station, now an elegant conference center. It was testament to the increasing maturity of the organization, founded in only 1997. The diverse backgrounds of the many copy editors, educators, editors and others who came and the breadth of the topics covered show that ACES has moved into the ranks as a major journalism organization. It is an organization with scholarships, a staff and more than 800 members.

It had more than two dozen sessions in Dallas, ranging from traditional copy editor fodder like "Caption Writing: A Lost Art" and "Editing: It's Not Just Comma Sense" to those that reflect its newfound prominence in journalism: "Diversity and the Copy Desk" and "Credibility and the Newsroom." Top editors from the Oregonian in Portland, The Greenville (S.C.) News and The Denver Post led or participated in sessions designed to improve the quality of journalism, and thinkers from outside the business challenged the attendees.
 

Susan Abe/ACES Online Molly Ivins was the very funny and memorable banquet speaker.	Patricia Marroquin/Los Angeles Times Dozens of workshop speakers, such as Paula LaRocque of The Dallas Morning News, kept participants busy.

Molly Ivins, the nationally syndicated columnist for the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram spoke at the banquet on Friday -- a banquet that had to be enlarged to accommodate all who wanted to attend. Covering ground from editing to language to allegations of George W. Bush's cocaine use, Ivins had the conference attendees in happy spirits throughout.

ACES' second auction was a rousing success, doubling the amount of money earned last year in Portland. Donated objects from people and newspapers around the country -- ranging from ornate statues to comic strips -- garnered more than $4,000 for the organization's education efforts.

One of those efforts was the first ACES scholarship winners, who were named at the conference. Four students who hold promise as copy editors will receive $1,000 toward their studies. The winners were Marisa Ferguson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Daniel Gordon of the University of Missouri-Columbia; Royce Hall of Seton Hall University in Mount Holly, N.J.; and Beth Kormanik of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Another first was the election of officers.

But in all of this change was always the refrain from first-time attendees, the one heard at every meeting ACES has ever had: "I finally feel that I am among my own people." And of course, they were.