KPA executive director refers to ‘amazing work’
Submitted by the Phillips County Review
Last month, readers of the Phillips County Review — a frequent contributor to Hays Post — saw it reported on the pages of that newspaper that it had just won a large number of Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence.
What was not known at the time, either by those readers or even the Phillips County Review staff itself, was exactly how well the newspaper fared in comparison to the 200+ other newspapers across the state of Kansas.
That question was answered with a bang last weekend during the course of the annual Kansas Press Association Convention at the Capitol Plaza in Topeka.
With the Convention getting underway on Thursday, the grand finale was at a ceremony on Saturday, during which previously announced winners of Awards of Excellence were recognized and presented with plaques and certificates commemorating their achievements.
With publishers, editors and reporters from large newspapers such as the Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle rubbing elbows with their counterparts from mid-level dailies and small town weeklies, hundreds of individuals present were able to finally see how well each did in contrast to their peers.
As the first place winners in various categories were named one by one during Saturday’s ceremony, they then marched up to the spotlight for a brief moment, got their hands shaken, collected their award plaques, and then returned to their seats; only to head back up to the podium a bit later to be recognized again should they have won multiple first place awards. (Second and third place winners were mentioned by name on a large screen that filled the wall flanking the podium.)
Editor Kirby Ross, Phillipsburg, was in Topeka representing the Phillips County Review, and walked up to the podium ten times for the hand shake and plaque during the course of the afternoon (the Review also won another eight second and third place awards).
As the presentations were concluding, Kansas Press Association Executive Director Emily Bradbury, the emcee of the program, began ratcheting up suspense for the most anticipated part of the entire three-day convention — the announcement of which publications surpassed the others in awards.
Each year winners of this part of the ceremony claim the KPA’s ‘Sweepstakes Award’ and get bragging rights as being the best newspapers in the state of Kansas.
This part of the convention is always more than a little fun, with observers hooting and hawing and whistling in the background, hoping their newspapers will be announced.
Executive Director Bradbury began this portion of the event by stating, “And now we come to the moment we have all been waiting for.”
Bradbury continued with an explanation of the impending big announcements’ selection process, and stated how each individual win receives a score, with the scores for individual first place, second place, and third place being added together. Then these total tallies for each newspaper are compared across the board to determine the best of the best among Kansas publications in the same circulation class.
After that build up and with the tension high, Bradbury paused, and then flashed the name of the Phillips County Review on the big screen beside her.
Afterwards Kirby Ross spoke of that moment.
“I was stunned. I didn’t see this one coming and wasn’t sure what to do. She finally motioned towards me that I was to come up and be recognized. Going in we knew what individual awards we had won and that we had done really well again this year. But to be named as being at the very top of our field among Kansas newspapers is overwhelming. What an honor, what an honor, and we owe it all to the incredible work done by all our staff and all our contributors.”
Commenting on the big award, on Monday morning KPA Executive Director Bradbury sent a note to Ross that included the following: “We always look forward to seeing you and watching you be awarded for your amazing work. The look on your face when your name was announced as winner of a sweepstakes award was priceless! Congratulations!”
As originally reported in the Jan. 16 issue of the Phillips County Review, below are the individual wins that led to last weekend’s larger overall win by the Review:
FIRST PLACE
•Best Investigative Reporting
•Best Government and Political Reporting
•Best Feature Story
•Best Sports Reporting
•Best Sports Pages
•Best Headline Writing
•Best Editorial Pages
•Best Political Ad
•Best House Ad
•Best Community Event Ad
SECOND PLACE
•Best Series of News Reporting
•Best Health Story
•Best Sports Photo
•Best Investigative Reporting
•Best Community Event Ad
THIRD PLACE
•Best Column Writing
•Design and Layout Excellence
•News and Writing Excellence