Thursday, March 28, 2024

Special section earns first place in statewide competition

Gazette-first
H&R Media staff members (from left) Joe Rehana, Mike McGinnis and Hilary Wright display the winning entry and first place plaque.

The Goreville Gazette was honored Thursday at the Illinois Press Association’s annual convention in Springfield for its production of a special section published last spring in the Gazette and The Vienna Times featuring the Lady Blackcats’ state title win.

The Gazette was awarded first place in the special section category in Division A for small weeklies.

The award is the first on the state level for the Gazette. The newspaper has won several regional awards in recent years.

More than 100 daily and non-daily newspapers competed in 36 editorial categories.

“I am extremely proud of the staff here,” said publisher Lonnie Hinton. “Editor Joe Rehana and sports writer Mike McGinnis did an excellent job with the editorial content.”

The judge’s comments about the Gazette’s special section included “interesting” and “nice layout.”

Hilary Wright and Ruth Ann Scoggins, of The Vienna Times staff, were responsible for selling and designing the ads in the tribute section.

Other local contributors to the section included Dixie Terry, Mike Whitehead, Tenia Calhoon and Lady Blackcats’ head coach Shanna Massey.

The competition was judged by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and included more than 3,500 editorial entries.

Goreville Gazette and The Vienna Times are published by H&R Media and are part of the Reppert family of newspapers. Company wide, the newspaper group includes 11 weekly newspapers and dozens of monthly publications.

The Illinois Press Association, located in Springfield, represents 480 daily and weekly newspapers.