The Hometown Press received two awards from the Iowa Newspaper Foundation at the annual Iowa Newspaper Association Convention held in Des Moines this past weekend.
Deb Johnson received the second-place award in best series category for her veteran salute articles published in this newspaper once a month. Jessica Maston is also named on the award certificate because she designed the pages for the series. The veteran columns entered in the contest featured Bob Fopma, Darlene Scull, Craig Weideman, John H. De Vries, Dale Flander, and Paul Elzey. The entry required six consecutive regularly published series of articles. The judges’ comments included: “Strong writing, interesting stories, good art, photography, and layout.”
The Hometown Press also received third-place in best use of graphics. The six graphic design entries showed snow days in the 2/28/2019 issue, stats of Julie Jones’ Chicago Marathon appearing in the 10/11/2018 issue, Iowa veteran qualifications in veteran Kurt Jackson feature in the 10/11/2018 issue, 2018 teacher grants graph in the 12/13/2018 issue, Sully First Reformed Church sanctuary remodel in the 7/11/2019 issue, and the prices of postage stamps graph in the 1/17/2019 issue. Judges’ comments included: “The marathon graphic was clean and helpful, as was the grants graphic.”
The local newspaper was judged in the Weekly Division Class II for circulations 961-1,550. In the Iowa Newspaper Associations annual honoring of the work of Iowa journalists through its Better Newspaper Contests, more than 3,300 entries were submitted in dozens of categories, including writing, advertising, photography, and graphics.
PHOTO: Deb Johnson, writer for the Hometown Press, holds the certificate the newspaper received for second place in the Best Series/Weekly Class II.
