A nice pat on the back
I am thrilled to share with you the kudos the Beacon received last fall at the annual conference of the North American Mature Publishers Association, whose journalism competition we enter every year.
We like to submit articles written by our staff as well as our regular freelancers to help them get the national recognition they deserve for their high-quality writing. That, in turn, gives me the opportunity to praise them in my column each year.
Each of our editions is entered into a different division, based on circulation. And this year, all three reaped some top honors.
The Howard County Beacon won two first places along with a third-place award. Barbara Ruben, a past managing editor of the Beacon, won first place for her cover story “Both dog and trainer are fast.”
Robert Friedman, who retired recently at age 90 but had been writing for us for almost 15 years, also won first place for what the judges called a “phenomenal profile” titled “Poet teaches the art of healing.” That cover story was Robert’s last for us before he retired.
An arts story written by our editorial assistant, Tori Cleveland, took third place for “Writer uses fiction to express what’s true.”
The Baltimore Beacon brought home two first-place awards for cover articles by freelancers Laura Melamed and Cathy Habas. Another cover by Melamed won a third-place award, while our editor Margaret Foster won second place for her cover feature, “Free advice for entrepreneurs.”
We were especially thrilled that our flagship edition, the Greater Washington Beacon, took home a total of 20 awards, including Best of Show overall and first place in the General Excellence category for the largest-circulation publications (66,000+).
In the Profile category, Barbara Ruben won another first-place award with her cover story, “A life of music and adventure,” while freelancer Laura Sturza won second place for “Our own Golden Bachelorette.”
In the Features category, which like our profiles appear on our cover pages, Margaret Foster won first place for her story on family-run camps, while regular contributor Glenda Booth won second- and third-place honors for her stories on car enthusiasts and summer camps for grownups. In all three awards, the judges noted the “great interviews” the writers elicited from their subjects.
Another category featuring cover stories is Topical Issues. Margaret Foster swept that whole category, with first, second and third place awards for cover stories about exchange student hosts, the story of AA, and “Searching for new love mid-life.”
In the Do-It-Yourself category, Cathy Habas won another first-place award for her story, “Who you gonna call? How ‘solo agers’ do it.”
In the Travel Column category, regular contributor Don Mankin won first place for his stories that “perfectly paint the scene” for travelers.
In the Theater Review category, Lynda Lantz won first place for her reviews of two plays in Washington, D.C.
Two of our special sections were also honored: our quarterly Housing & Homecare Options pull-out section and our Caregiver’s Guide.
We have been proud to feature Bob Levey and his monthly column for many years now, and not surprisingly, he won first place in the Senior Issues category for his “enjoyable and entertaining” columns. He also earned second place for his Personal Essay titled, “It’s not so easy to play Cupid anymore.”
In the Editorial/Opinion category, my From the Publisher columns won first and second place for being “extremely topical, interesting and well-researched.” Another of my columns, entered in the Personal Essay category, won first place for “vulnerable writing [that] makes readers feel, perhaps, not so alone about fears.”
Another vulnerable essay, “Is it dementia, or wasn’t I like this at 40?” was provided to us by local writer Leslie Milk, who won third place for “personalizing a frightening topic.”
Of course, the most important honor we receive is from you, our readers, who pick up your copy of the Beacon each month from one of our thousands of free distribution sites, subscribe by mail, or read us online at thebeaconnewspapers.com.
However you choose to do it, we thank you for reading the Beacon!
By the way, you can look up and read any of the articles mentioned above on our website, thebeaconnewspapers.com.
