The Parkersburg News and Sentinel brought home a total of 15 awards in the annual West Virginia Press Association Better Newspaper Awards at the WVPA convention, held this year at Stonewall Jackson State Park and Resort.
The judging, done by press association member newspapers from Mississippi, is divided into categories based on the circulation of the newspapers entered, with separate divisions for daily newspapers and non-daily publications.
In its highly competitive circulation division, the advertising department won 13 awards, including a third place in General Excellence and the newsroom had one first-place win and one second-place win, both for sports sections, out of the several thousands entries submitted by the press association member newspapers.
The advertising department took first-place honors in:
* Best Special Section for the newspaper's annual Pigskin Preview;
* Best Classified Section;
* Best Political Ad;
* Best Spot Color Ad under one-half page in size;
* Best Theme Page, Retail.
The advertising department took second-place honors in:
* Best Newspaper Promotion Campaign for the "I Shop Local" series;
* Best House Ad;
* Best Theme Page in classified for the trunk-driver week series by Mary Jo Miller;
* Best Classified Display Ad by Corey Litton;
* Best Recruitment ad by Mary Jo Miller.
The advertising department won third-place in:
* Best progress edition;
* Best Single Ad in black and white over one-half page in size;
* Best Special Section for the Heroes tabloid honoring firefighters.
The newsroom won a first-place award for Best Sports Section for the newspaper's annual highly respected and anticipated Pigskin Preview, which will appear this year in the Aug. 23 edition of The News and Sentinel and will highlight the high school football teams in the Mid-Ohio Valley and several colleges of interest to this area of the state.
The newsroom's second-place award also was for a sports section: The annual winter sports tabloid that previews the high school teams participating in winter sports.
Matt Tranquill, the newspaper advertising director, said, "The staff strives to exceed the needs and wants of its customer-partners by creating the content and appearance of advertisements that will gain reader attention and help the advertiser succeed.
"We are proud of our staff and encourage advertisers to use their expertise to tell the advertiser's story to the buying public," Tranquill said.
Jim Smith, executive editor, said the newspaper is very proud of the hard-working sports staff and of the effort it strives to achieve every day, but especially for the tremendous amount of work that goes into producing the largest football preview in the state.
Publisher Jim Spanner said he "appreciates the efforts of all those who work so hard at the newspaper and is proud of the awards The News and Sentinel wins, but the awards are not the end-all for the newspaper, which strives each day to reach and/or surpass the expectations of our readers and advertisers."
