Republican wins seven awards in press contest

    After a year of COVID-19 that affected every corner of life and business, newspapers in Nebraska still published on regular schedules.
    And, while the Nebraska Press Association cancelled its annual convention in April, it still sponsored its Better Newspapers Contest for news coverage, photography and advertising in 2020.
    Winners were announced in an online video format last week.
    The Imperial Republican won seven awards in 2020 in editorial, advertising, photography and computer graphics divisions.
    The Wauneta Breeze brought home one award in photography. The Breeze was merged into The Imperial Republican last November.
    The Grant Tribune-Sentinel, a Johnson Publications sister newspaper, was the winner of 13 awards.
    All three newspapers compete in different divisions based on circulation. The Republican competes in Class C, the largest of the three, the Tribune-Sentinel is in B and the Breeze in A.
    The Republican won firsts for its editorial page, a Helena ag advertisement and the special section on grain.    
    In the editorial page competition, three separate pages were entered from April, August and one other week. Judges considered power of the original editorial content, layout, design and local relevance in choosing the Republican’s entries as first.
    Also taking first in Class C was the special section highlighting grain published in February 2020. However, that award is shared by all three Johnson Publications’ newspapers since all contributed to its content. Contest rules allow only the largest newspaper to enter special sections.
    An ad for Helena published in February won first for agricultural advertisement.
    The Republican’s classified ad page took second.
    Three third place awards were won.
    The feature photo of Audra Gaswick after the first major snow in the Oct. 29, 2020 issue took third.
    The newspaper’s comical ad offering newspaper end rolls for purchase during the COVID toilet paper shortage also took third for creative ad writing.
    Also taking a third place was the weather graphic in January designed by Russ Pankonin used with the 2019 year weather recap story.
    Diane Stamm’s photo of Charlee Spickelmier in last year’s limited fair coverage won third in Class A for the Breeze.
    The Grant newspaper collected the following awards:
    First place—Small ad, entertainment story, coronavirus coverage.
    Second place—General excellence, single retail ad (black and white), front page, headline writing.
    Third place—Classified page, sports feature photography, breaking news story, single feature story, entertainment story, newswriting.
    The Aurora News-Register, owned by Imperial native Kurt Johnson and wife Paula, also won several awards in Class C, as well as Service to Agriculture and Community Service awards.
    More than 3,100 separate entries, representing nine dailies and 66 weekly newspapers, were judged by members of the Kentucky Press Association.