The Greenwood Commonwealth has won 26 journalism awards, including 10 first-place honors, in the Mississippi Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.
The awards, recognizing work published during 2019, were announced Friday.
For overall General Excellence, the Commonwealth took third in the category of daily newspapers with less than 9,000 circulation. The Meridian Star was first, and the Starkville Daily News second.
Staff Writer Gerard Edic shared in two first-place awards. He combined with Gavin Maliska, a former managing editor, to win the top honor for Best Spot News Story for their coverage of the June 2019 crash of a Greenwood High School bus. Edic, Maliska and Susan Montgomery, a freelance writer, also won first for Best Planned Series for their combined work on a package of stories, published in the 2019 Profile Edition, that considered how Greenwood had changed in the past 20 years and how it might look 20 years into the future.
The Greenwood High football team’s run in the playoffs last year provided plenty of compelling story lines. Freelance photographer Andy Lo captured them visually in a way that impressed the judges from the neighboring state of Alabama. Lo won first for Best Sports Feature Photo and for Best Sports Action Photo, both for photos he took of the Bulldogs, whose undefeated season ended with a loss in the North 4A championship game.
Among the other top awards the Commonwealth received, Managing Editor Ruthie Robison took first place for Best Lifestyles Section, and Editor Tim Kalich first for Best Editorial Page. A piece by Maliska on the famous City of New Orleans train route, which runs through Greenwood, was judged Best Magazine Story.
The Commonwealth also won first for Best Design, and its quarterly magazine Leflore Illustrated was tops in its class. In the Best Special Section category, the newspaper’s Profile Edition finished first and its Farming Edition second.
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth’s owner, Wyatt Emmerich, won the prestigious J. Oliver Emmerich Editorial Excellence Award, which is named for his grandfather. The award recognizes what judges consider the best example of opinion writing in the state each year.
It was the second time for Wyatt Emmerich, who also serves as publisher of The Northside Sun in Jackson, to win the award.
His editorials, said the judges, “are based on detailed facts, which are laid out for readers. The writer makes clear and persuasive arguments to support an opinion and/or explain the nuances of an issue.”
Other awards the Commonwealth received:
• Feature Story: Kalich, second place.
• Editorials: Kalich, second place.
• News Package: Edic and Maliska, second place.
• Spot News Photo: Lo, second place.
• Spot News Story: Maliska, second place.
• Headlines: City Editor David Monroe, second place.
• Sports Page or Section: Sports Editor Bill Burrus, third place.
• Sports Column: Burrus, third place.
• Sports Feature: Burrus, third place.
• Game Story: Burrus, third place.
• General Interest Column: Kalich, third place.
• General News Photo: Maliska, third place.
• Pictorial Series: Lo, Edic and Kalich, third place.
• Business News Story: Freelance writer Jo Alice Darden, third place.
