The Elgin Review was recognized with four first-place awards Saturday night, the most of any newspaper in Antelope County, during the Saturday night banquet at the annual Nebraska Press Association Convention.
Competing in Class B (newspapers with circulations between 860 and 1,499), there were more than 1,000 entries.
The Elgin Review earned top honors in the following categories:
• Agricultural Advertisement — The ad, entitled ‘Flies Bugging You?’ was for Jerry’s Feed Service. The judge commented, “Well constructed small space ad with a simple message and strong benefit headlines and copy.”
• Ad Copywriting — The ad was generated for the Bank of Elgin and was entitled ‘Dime a Dozen.’ Michigan judges said “For all of us feeling squeezed by banks, this is nice.”
• Public Notice & Its Promotion — Encouraging subscribers to read and understand public notices, the newspaper earned a first place award. “Beware of Informed Readers is one of the best ads for public notices.”
• Sports Column — Written by Dennis Morgan, the sports column highlighted the start of the fall sports season and the Elgin Public-Pope John Wolfpack’s mission to repeat as state champs which they did three months later. “The columnist not only has a lot invested in his team, his solid and clear prose make us like the Wolfpack, too,” said the Michigan judges.
“It’s always nice to be recognized for doing good work,” Publisher Dennis Morgan said. “Our focus has always been, and will continue to be, to provide the highest quality community newspaper to our subscribers. Each issue we strive to be better than the last.”
More than 4,000 separate entries, representing 12 dailies and 79 weeklies, were judged by members of the Michigan Press Association. The award winners were announced Saturday night during banquet festivities at the Holiday Inn-Downtown in Lincoln where more than 150 journalists attended.
In other developments at the convention, Morgan was re-elected to a three-year term on the association’s board of directors.
Competing in different divisions, The Petersburg Press, The Neligh News and The Albion News also received awards at the convention.
The Nebraska Press Association membership includes 173 weekly and daily newspapers with a total paid circulation in excess of 541,000 persons. It was founded in 1873.
Elgin also had a connection with the highest honor bestowed upon members by the NPA. At Friday night’s banquet attended by more than 100 journalists from across the state, Ted Gill, who was a co-publisher of The Elgin Review for nearly two years when it was sold by Jim and Julie Dickerson, was awarded the ‘Master Editor-Publisher Award. Now, the paper is solely owned by Dennis and Lynell Morgan.
