NEWS RELEASE
DO NOT RELEASE UNTIL
10:00 P.M. FRIDAY, FEB. 4, 2011
Contact:
Oklahoma Press Association
(405) 499-0028
Jennifer Gilliland, Creative Director
jgilliland@okpress.com
Press Association presents awards
during annual Mid-Winter Convention
Ten newspapers receive top honors in annual contest
Better Newspaper Contest awards were presented at the Oklahoma
Press Association’s annual Mid-Winter Convention, Feb. 3-5, at the Reed
Center in Midwest City.
Ten newspapers received the Sequoyah Award, the highest honor in
the contest, which is determined by the amount of points accumulated in the
contest’s 12 events: News Content, Layout & Design, Advertising, Sales
Promotion, In-Depth Enterprise, Editorial Comment, Personal Columns,
News Writing, Feature Writing, Sports Coverage, Photography and
Community Leadership.
Sequoyah Award winners in their respective divisions were Enid News
& Eagle, Stillwater NewsPress, The Journal Record (Oklahoma City), The
Purcell Register, Oologah Lake Leader, Cherokee Messenger & Republican,
Catoosa Times, El Reno Tribune, Mustang Times, and Oral Roberts
University’s The Oracle.
The contest drew 913 entries from 99 newspapers, and were judged by
members of the North Dakota Newspaper Association.
In addition to the 10 Sequoyah Award winners, 119 first place plaques
were presented during the awards banquet on Friday, Feb. 4, 2011.
Newspapers receiving second, third or fourth place in the contest received
certificates.
A complete list of winners in the 2010 OPA Better Newspaper Contest
is available on the OPA website at okpress.com/2010-contest-results.
OKLAHOMA PRESS ASSOCIATION AWARDS
EMBARGOED UNTIL 10 PM FRIDAY, FEB. 4, 2011
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Other awards presented during the banquet included the OPA’s Milt
Phillips Award. This year’s prestigious award went to Gloria Trotter, copublisher of The Countywide & Sun. Gloria and her husband, Wayne, came
to Oklahoma in 1983 after purchasing the Tecumseh Countywide News.
Gloria is a past president of the OPA and Freedom of Information
Oklahoma, and a member of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.
She received the National Newspaper Association’s McKinney Award
in 2005, and an Outstanding Journalism Alumni Award by the University of
Memphis Journalism Alumni Chapter in 2004.
Oklahoman reporter Nolan Clay was presented with the Oklahoma
Newspaper Foundation’s Beachy Musselman Award. Clay has worked
almost 26 years as a reporter for the Oklahoman, covering courthouses and
exposing corruption.
Three journalists who have dedicated 50 or more years to the
newspaper industry were inducted into the OPA Half Century Club during
the banquet. The Half-Century inductees were Jerry L. Denson, Joan
Gilmore and Violet Gore. In addition, 11 journalists were inducted into the
Quarter Century Club, including James Beaty, John L. Clark, Joy Dorman,
Helen L. Ferguson, James F. Fienup, Patrick Jordan, Jeri McEntire, Sandra
K. Moore, Todd Short, Brenda Tollett, and Christy Brunken Wheeland.
Several additional awards were presented at a luncheon Friday, Feb. 4,
including:
• Editorial Sweepstakes Winner, sponsored by ONG, presented to Kim
Poindexter, Tahlequah Daily Press.
• Column Sweepstakes Winner, sponsored by ONG, presented to Ted
Streuli, The Journal Record.
• Daily Photo of the Year, sponsored by OGE Energy Corp., presented
to Ed Blochowiak, Shawnee News-Star.
• Weekly Photo of the Year, sponsored by OGE Energy Corp.,
presented to Louise Red Corn, The Bigheart Times.
• ONF Joseph H. Edwards Outdoor Writer of the Year presented to
Kelly Bostian, Tulsa World.
• Print Quality Contest awards presented to The Journal Record (daily
division) and Stigler News-Sentinel (weekly division).
• Website Contest awards presented to The Ardmoreite (daily division)
and Elk Citian (weekly division).
OKLAHOMA PRESS ASSOCIATION AWARDS
EMBARGOED UNTIL 10 PM FRIDAY, FEB. 4, 2011
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