Newspaper staff receives awards

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette took home 17 first-place awards Saturday in the Arkansas Press Women Professional Communications Contest.

The newspaper’s website, ArkansasOnline.com, earned top honors for corporate or for-profit website. The award listed senior online editor Sarah Campbell-Miller. Co-entrants were Nicholas Popowitch, Remington Miller, Kyle McDaniel, Brian Smith, Jesse Cain and Jared Haas.

Several Democrat-Gazette editors won first-place writing awards, including David Barham for his editorial titled “Impeachable Witnesses;” John Brummett for his column “The Religion of Momma;” Frank Lockwood, the religion editor, for in-depth reporting on Immanuel Baptist Church; Philip Martin for the personal essay “Almost Grown” and the travel story “Dylan at Tulsa;” Rex Nelson for his column “Arkansas Comes Last;” Helaine Williams, style editor, in the category of humorous for “Succulent Slayer;” and Sheila Yount, style editor, for the personality profile of Theba Lolley. (Cary Jenkins was listed as a co-entrant with Yount on that story.)

Reporter Tony Holt won first place for his podcast “Chasing Ghosts.”

Reporter Bill Bowden won first place for writing in the category of feature story for a print-based newspaper with his article “To Jilt a Mockingbird.”

Janet Carson, the newspaper’s freelance garden columnist, took top honors for informational column for her monthly column “Breaking Ground.”

Staci Vandagriff, staff photographer, won three firstplace awards: for news or feature photo for “Responders Check Through Storm Damage,” sports photo for “Harding Coaches and Players Celebrate,” and general photo for “Bridal Show.”

Cary Jenkins won a firstplace award in photography for “Robinson Building.”

Terry Austin won first place in page design for tornado coverage.

Carrie Hill won first place in graphics for “Page by Page.”

The awards were for work from 2023.

There were 310 entries submitted in the Arkansas professional contest, said Richard S. Plotkin, the contest co-director.

He said the judges were based in Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

“It has been the long-standing practice of Arkansas Press Women to not identify the judges for the Professional Communications Contest,” Plotkin said in an email. “The reason is to safeguard independence between the pool of judges and contest entrants.”