Local newspaper staff members receive TPA awards
Winners of the Texas Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest were announced Saturday, June 22, at the grand finale of the Texas press group’s annual convention and trade show, was held in College Station.
Readers will be pleased to know that your very own hometown newspaper had quite the showing this year.
The Luling Newsboy collected seven accolades at the Texas Press Association (TPA) awards banquet: One first place placard, two second place finishes and four third place wins, together earning the newspaper a total of 400 points this year, which was good for a third-place finish overall in its division for the organization’s most coveted press award, the TPA Sweepstakes Award.
Newspapers were evaluated in 18 different categories, with 100 newspapers statewide submitting some 956 entries in the contest.
Newspapers were split into various divisions based on the number of times a week they publish and the number of subscribers they hold.
Eleven dailies, 24 semiweeklies, and 65 weekly newspapers were represented in this year’s contest, each providing submissions published during the 2023 calendar year.
Members of Georgia Press Association served as judges for this year’s TPA contest. It marked the first time the newspaper entered the statewide competition in years now, managing editor Bobby Horecka noted.
Luling’s Wins:
• First Place, Advertising—Representing three ad packages built by graphic artist Michelle Price, who works out of our Hallettsville office and builds most of the ads that appear in the Newsboy.
Ads submitted included the 8-page Fiddler’s Frolics section she built in 2023, the entire 2023 Luling Watermelon Thump section, and a two-page October Breast Cancer Awareness ad she built, which published in an all black-and-white edition whose only color throughout was bright pink of her ad pages.
“Above and beyond design skills,” the judges said. “Eye catching and clean. These were a joy to read.”
• Second Place, General Excellence—Submissions require two full editions of the newspaper. We chose our March 23, 2023 edition, and this very same edition a year ago, our Thump Week publication. “Interesting content with the Luling Watermelon Thump and history stories,” the judges said. “Great tribute to the late publisher (Karen McCrary).”
• Second Place, Sports Coverage—Featuring the work of sports editor Mark Lube from our Shiner office, Luling’s Nicole Smith, Luling sports columnist Eric Lugo, Luling sports photographer Mary Camacho, columnist Murray Montgomery from our Hallettsville office, and Bobby Horecka.
“Good countywide coverage, variety of sports included and enjoyed the feature about the young female athlete playing six-player football (by Nicole Smith),” the judges said.
Interesting to note is that two edition’s sports pages were submitted. One included six pages of an eightpage newspaper, and the other featured sports stories on 12 of its 16 total pages from that edition.
• Third Place, Column Writing—Featuring the work of Murray Montgomery (No judge’s comments offered in category). Columns entered included one of a couple of Texas Rangers, the cowboy kind, not the baseball team, and the other on an aging and nearly gone Greatest Generation bracket of veterans.
• Third Place, Feature Photography—Featuring the work of Luling’s Nicole Smith. (Submitted photos featured on this page; no judge’s comments offered on this category either.)
Interesting to note is that this entry comprises Nicole’s first year efforts in this industry. She came to us after retiring from a career in education. Yet while only her first year in newspapers, she shows the patience and timing of a seasoned professional in this business.
• Third Place, News Writing—Featuring stories by Smith and Horecka. “A personable writing style that connects with readers in the telling of the tale,” judges said.
One was a story written on a murder trial that made national headlines last year, involving a young man who stopped early one morning in someone’s driveway in Caldwell County to check the map apps on his phone and was gunned down for doing so before he could speed away, less than a mile from his girlfriend’s house, his intended destination.
The killer, incidentally, found guilty as charged, was awarded probation for the offense by a jury of his peers.
The second news story came on the heels of a semitruck/train collision in downtown Luling which shut down car and train traffic for most of the day. “This was Nicole’s first news story with our newspaper, written before she officially started working with us,” Horecka said.
• Third Place, Special Section—Our annual hunting section, Campside Chatter, featuring works by Clayton Kelley from the Yoakum Herald-Times, Price and Horecka. (No judges comments in the category).