Herald wins top award for news

SEATTLE — The Herald won the Sweepstakes Award Saturday night for earning the most honors among newspapers in its circulation division that belong to the Western Washington Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

The paper’s awards came in competition with newspapers in the five-state area, which includes six SPJ chapters. However, the Sweepstakes Award judging is limited to newspapers whose members belong to the Western Washington chapter. The Herald earned the most awards within the chapter for daily newspapers with 25,001 to 65,000 circulation. The Vancouver Columbian, which belongs to the Oregon SPJ chapter, won the most awards overall in the same circulation category.

Herald staff members garnered a total of 22 awards, including four first-place awards, in the 2004 Society of Professional Journalists Northwest Excellence in Journalism Contest for Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

The Herald’s first-place winners:

Christina Harper, first place in the feature story category for her story "And then there were 3."

Larry Henry, first place, sports columns.

Doug Parry, first place, news page design.

Janice Podsada, first place, science reporting, for "In deep water." (Podsada is now at the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio.)

The Herald’s circulation division includes such newspapers as The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash.; The Sun in Bremerton; The Tri-City Herald; and the Yakima Herald-Republic.

Second-place winners for The Herald were:

Scott North and Diana Hefley, investigative reporting, for "A heavy burden."

David Olson, governmental reporting, for "Festival’s tax share a political hot button."

Lukas Velush, consumer reporting, for "Fix your commute."

Yoshiaki Nohara, lifestyles reporting, for "Faith in simplicity."

Jennifer Warnick, arts coverage, for "Acting group struggles to thrive."

Bryan Corliss, business features, for "767 tanker."

Kurt Batdorf, headline writing.

Third-place winners for The Herald were:

Velush, science reporting, for "Power where you’d least expect it."

Warnick, lifestyles reporting, for "With this Harley."

Scott M. Johnson, sports features, for "Lasting impact."

Julie Muhlstein, general columns.

Dan Bates, general news photography, for "Iraqi immigrants overcome with joy."

Corliss, business columns, in a combined circulation category that included the region’s largest newspapers, including The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Honorable mentions were awarded to:

Scott North, David Olson and Todd Frankel, governmental reporting, for "Crime-fighting by the numbers." (Frankel is now at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Missouri.)

Hefley, personalities, for "Ours is a life sentence of pain."

Andrew Wineke, food, fashion and home reporting, for "A welcome home." (Wineke is now at the Colorado Springs Gazette in Colorado.)

Jacqueline McCartney, headline writing.

Beth Armstrong, spot news photography, for "Iraqis celebrate."

Copyright ©2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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