Republican captures 19 awards in annual press contest

    Newspapers across the state are celebrating the Nebraska Press Association’s 150th year in 2023 and Saturday night capped off a three-day convention in Lincoln.
    At Saturday’s awards banquet, The Imperial Republican captured 17 category awards in Class C, as well as News Photo of the Year and runner-up in the Class C Sweepstakes competition.
    Its sister publication, the Grant Tribune-Sentinel, earned seven awards.
    Class C includes newspapers with 1,000 to 1,899 circulations and  is the largest of the four categories in which weekly newspapers compete. Class C includes 45 newspapers.
    The Republican won a statewide award a second year in a row when managing editor Jan Schultz captured News Photo of the Year for her June 2022 fire photo  at Capitol Mobile Court.
    News photos from all weekly and daily newspapers competed for this award and four others in the “special awards” category.
    In 2022, Republican reporter and sports editor Diane Stamm won Feature Photo of the Year.
    Overall, the Republican newspaper staff won 5 firsts, 2 seconds and 10 thirds in the individual categories.
    Among the firsts earned by the staff was the coveted General Excellence category.
    Judges make an overall evaluation of the newspaper for this award including news, content, quality of writing, headlines, page design, photos and captions, front, editorial sports and lifestyle pages, ad design, graphics, printing quality and treatment of public notices.
    Managing Editor Schultz said winning the General Excellence category is the top award in her opinion because it judges all aspects of the newspaper against papers of similar size.
    Winning the General Excellence category lifted the Republican to 2nd place for the Class C Sweepstakes Award.
    The first, second and third place Sweepstakes winners are those newspapers accumulating the most points from their firsts, seconds and thirds in 58 divisions of competition. The Republican finished second behind the Ord Quiz for Sweepstakes honors.
    Besides General Excellence, the Republican also earned firsts for photo page, personal column, sports action photo and ag advertisement.
    Second were collected for photo page and signature page.
    Ten thirds were won for editorial pages, special section, classified ad section, sports pages, newswriting, sports column, breaking news photo, news photo, feature photo and sports feature photo.
    Frank Perea, Publisher of the Imperial and Grant newspapers owned by the Mullen Newspaper Co., said the awards are to be celebrated.
    “Celebrating being recognized and rewarded by The Nebraska Press Association is something our counties, readers and advertisers should be very proud of,” he said.
    “With an array of awards earned as two of the best Nebraska newspapers, this reaffirms our commitment to producing top-quality newspapers, photos, news coverage and special publications,” he said.
    More than 2,544 separate entries from Nebraska newspapers were judged by members of the West Virginia Press Association.
    Gov. Jim Pillen spoke at Friday’s dinner and also issued a proclamation during his comments designating June 26-30 as “Community Newspaper Week in Nebraska.”
    It was also announced at the convention that National Newspaper Association’s convention will be in Omaha next year, Sept. 26-28, 2024.
Grant newspaper awards
    The Grant Tribune -Sentinel, another High Plains News North publication, won three first place awards, three seconds and a third in the NPA contest.
    The Grant newspaper competed in Class C, the same as The Imperial Republican.
The Tribune’s awards were:
    First place for Sports Feature Photo—Diane Stamm; In-Depth Newswriting—Becky Uehling; and Editorial Page—Becky Uehling and Shari Friedel.
    Second place for Sports Feature Writing—Diane Stamm; Feature Photo—Becky Uehling; and General Excellence—Becky Uehling, Shari Friedel, Diane Stamm.
    Third place for Breaking Newswriting—Becky Uehling.

Imperial Republican
2023 NPA awards

Special Awards
    News Photo of the Year—Jan Schultz, trailer court fire
    2nd Place—Class C Sweepstakes (second highest award point total in class)

First Place
    General Excellence—Overall rating of all aspects of newspaper
    Photo Page–Diane Stamm, Fourth of July
    Personal Column—Jan Schultz, “You never know when kind act, smile will make impression”
    Sports Action Photo—Diane Stamm, Track hurdlers
    Ag Advertisement—Samie Johnson, Western Select Genetics

Second Place
    Photo Page—Diane Stamm, State Wrestling
    Signature Page—Diane Stamm, State Track

Third Place
    Editorial Pages
    Special Section—”Have The Time of Your Life” geared to   
50+ population. This is produced with Grant Tribune and
Holyoke Enterprise staffs
    Classified Section—Kim Large
    Sports Pages—Diane Stamm
    Newswriting—Jan Schultz, CCS bus accident
    Sports column—Diane Stamm, “New Trends Emerging”
    Breaking News Photo—Jan Schultz, Parent with children after bus accident
    News Photo—Diane Stamm, Girl in wagon at Labor Day Auction
    Feature Photo—Diane Stamm, Harvest Fest roper
    Sports Feature Photo—Diane Stamm, Youth soccer fun