Former editor named to organization’s hall
Staff members from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette won top honors Friday in six categories of the Great Plains Journalism Awards.
In addition, retired Democrat-Gazette special projects editor Lawrence “Sonny” Albarado became a new member of the Great Plains Journalism Hall of Fame as one of the hall’s second class of inductees. Other inductees were Jeannette Cooperman with St. Louis Magazine, David Fritze of Oklahoma Watch, Jim Goodwin with The Oklahoma Eagle, Wayne Greene of Public Service Company of Oklahoma and formerly with Tulsa World, and Sam Jones with RSU-TV.
The regional journalism competition draws entries from eight states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota — and is sponsored by the Tulsa Press Club.
In all, 14 Democrat-Gazette staff members were named as finalists. The winners and finalists were announced at a luncheon event at the Tulsa Press Club.
The Democrat-Gazette website, arkansasonline.com, won Great Plains Website of the Year.
Website team members also won top honors for Best Website Design, Project for the newspaper’s vaccine information page arkansasonline.com/vaccineinfo/. Team members on the project include senior online editor Maggie McNeary, audience engagement editor Nyssa Kruse, producers Brian Smith and David Wilson, and former assistant managing editor Barry Arthur, who is now parent company WEHCO Media’s director of audience technology.
Other top awards were given to Stan Denman for Page Design and senior photo editor Staton Breidenthal, who earned top honors for Spot News Photography.
On the editorial team, editorial page editor David Barham won for Editorial Portfolio and columnist John Brummett won for News Column Portfolio.
HALL OF FAME
Albarado was inducted to the Hall of Fame with the following introduction:
“Lawrence ‘Sonny’ Albarado retired from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette at the end of January 2020 after 12 1/2 years as the paper’s top investigative editor, supervising a team of four reporters.
“Since retiring, he has worked as a contract consultant and editor for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a Memphis-based online news outlet that ‘focuses on the intersection of poverty, power and policy.’
“He also worked for six months as a contract editor and consultant for the Democrat-Gazette on a series about the coronavirus pandemic’s effects on public education in Arkansas. He also serves as a consultant to the USC Center for Healthcare Journalism for its various fellowship programs and served in 2020 and 2021 as a Senior Fellow in the Center’s National Health Reporting Fellowship, mentoring fellows as they produce impactful journalism about health in their communities.
“Sonny is secretary of the SPJ Foundation, the charitable funding source of the Society of Professional Journalists. He served as national president of SPJ in 20122013 and is a current board member of the Arkansas SPJ chapter.
“He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and an honorary Doctor of Letters from Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La.”