Chronicle honored with several awards at AP state contest

The Houston Chronicle won several first-place awards and dozens of other prizes at this year’s Associated Press Managing Editors awards for reporting, writing and photography in the large newspaper category.

Chronicle investigations that uncovered mismanagement of the massive investment fund that supports Texas public schools and sexual abuse allegations among Southern Baptist leaders were honored for their impact on the community.

The Chronicle’s Broken Trust series won first place in community service for revealing mismanagement of the Texas Permanent School Fund. The series was written by Susan Carroll, David Hunn, Matt Dempsey and Jeremy Blackman.

“This is an incredible example of community service journalism — from identifying the problem, codifying it through deep reporting, offering solutions and spurring change that will have ripple effects across the state and impact lives for generations,” a judge wrote about the series.

On Friday, APME will announce the winner of a new category, Newsroom of the Year.

Awards earned by the newspaper announced Thursday included:

Maggie Gordon won first place in short features for Dexter the Dog, a children's story about a therapy dog who helps children recover at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital

Lomi Kriel won first place in specialty reporting for coverage of immigration issues.

Jenny Deam won first place for business reporting and third place in specialty reporting for health care coverage. Jordan Blum won second place in business reporting.

Shelby Webb won first place in feature writing for her coverage of the one-year anniversary of the

Santa Fe High School shooting.

Monica Rhor won first place for editorial writing.

Wei-Huan Chen won first place for comment and criticism for the second consecutive year. Andrew Dansby won second place in that category.

Charles Apple won first place for infographics. Ken Ellis won second place in this category.

Brett Coomer won second place in sports photography and feature photography. Suzanne Garofalo won second place in headline writing.

St. John Barned-Smith and Keri Blakinger won second place in the Freedom of Information category for coverage of a botched police raid that left two civilians dead. Barned-Smith and Nicole Hensley won third place for deadline writing for coverage of the raid.

“Abuse of Faith,” a multipart series that revealed that 380 Southern Baptist church pastors and volunteers had faced credible allegations of sexual misconduct over 20 years, won third place for community service. Photojournalist Jon Shapley won first place for a video shorter than two minutes, and second place for a longer video on the project.

The Houston Chronicle photography staff won second place for its end-of-year photo gallery and third place for photojournalism.

It won second place in the feature series category for its Mission Moon project, which included work by Alex Stuckey, Mike Tolson, Diane Cowen, Andrew Dansby and Andrea Leinfelder. The Mission Moon project won third place for team effort.

Elizabeth Conley won third place for feature photography and third place in video longer than two minutes.

Gabrielle Banks won third place in feature series, and Godofredo A. Vasquez won third place in photo galleries.

Brian T. Smith won an honorable mention for sports column writing. Nadya Hassan earned an honorable mention as Designer of the Year.

The photography staff won an honorable mention for its Imelda coverage, which also received third place for online live coverage.