Texas Press Association

Texas Press Association

Division 6 Weeklies 2,000 to 3,001
Division 7 Weeklies 1,201 to 2,000
Division 8 Weeklies 1,200 or Less 

Division 5 Weeklies 3,001 or more

GENERAL EXCELLENCE

1. Duncanville Today. Good-looking paper! Your hard work shows in all areas. Good page 1 layout.

2. Fort Worth Business Press. Suggestion: just say “staff writer.” You don’t need “of the Business Press.” Good looking publication.

3. Pearland Journal. Nice, clean flag. Great front-page layout. Paper has great departmentalization and is easy to follow.

4. Houston Business Journal. (No comment.)

ADVERTISING

1. Park Cities People. Superb use of photos. Excellent creativity. Extremely clean and original. Outstanding color adaptation when used. More ads scream for soft spot-color enhancement. Beautifully envisioned and departmentally coordinated. Shows selling power; positive merchandise environment for all merchants and services.

2. Colleyville News & Times. Superior use of color throughout. Could use more pictures in a number of ads. Nice use of type fonts, reverses below the average. On group pages all ads seem to display an overall individuality. Selling power is extremely strong. Typography is strong and adds to overall balance.

3. Park Cities News. Clean, sparkling innovative and commanding advertisement. Only real weakness is photo pages produce a gray environment for ads on the page. Excellent balance. It appears your creative ad staff is on par with the many agency shops which supply you with sterling ad presentation.

4. Duncanville Today. Very strong real estate and automotive emphasis. Excellent utilization of spot and process color. Thought and planning is very evident with this pub. Typography selection is better than most. A large number of smaller units need white space consideration; more emphasis on price points and selling power.

COLUMN WRITING

1. Colorado County Citizen, Sally Rogers. April 26: Wow, lady, you got it all. We said the same things you did. I hope your readers told you you did good.

2. Rockdale Reporter & Messenger, Susie Freeman. Thanks! Your column sums it up. Great job!

3. Colorado County Citizen, Sally Rogers. Smart, quick and brassy style. You make me want to return to a Woolsworth store. (See, I even remember how it was pronounced.). Great imagery. Fun and yet a little poignant.

4. Park Cities News, John W. Nix. Wait! I am not a fisher person, but I loved your story. I deducted three points on your lead. If you had only lightened it up and made two paragraphs out of it. Very good work.

EDITORIALS

1. Rockdale Reporter & Messenger, Mike Brown. Well-researched, well-written editorial making a point many would like to overlook.

2. Houston Business Journal. Very well done. Professional.

3. Cameron Herald, Wayne Green. What a nice idea!

4. Nueces County Record-Star, Very well-written.

FEATURE STORY

1. Duncanville Today, Robin Gooch. Nice design, photos, nicely told story. Good editing. What can you find to criticize about Robin Gooch? Lucky readers!

2. Houston Business Journal, Darrin Schlegel. Good use of photo. Writer took us in to personally meet this character. We felt at ease, like we were right there. Nice word pictures.

3. Nueces County Record-Star, Vicki Keach. What a headline, what a story! Great quotes, nice length. Vicki Keach has one of the best pieces I’ve read today. Give her a star.

4. Park Cities People, Glenda Vosburgh. What a nice photo! Interesting story. Too bad everybody can’t be a winner.

NEWS WRITING

1. Houston Business Journal. Overall an excellent product. Good mix of stories, business-oriented writing does not lapse into jargon, writing is clear and inviting.

2. Cameron Herald. Excellent leads that sum up the story. Writing generally tight, easy to understand and balanced. Coverage seems complete and wide ranging.

3. Azle News. Good mix of news and features. Stories get right to the point. Government stories are generally factual without getting boring.

4. Pearland Journal. Stories are generally well written with good use of quotes. Quotes are introduced well and move the narrative forward. Good mix of news, especially government news and features.

SPORTS COVERAGE

1. Azle News. Good action shots. I really enjoyed “On Your Mark.” Photos should be bordered. Cutlines and bylines are significant.

2. Fredericksburg Standard/Radio Post. Good action photos. Border pictures to give design to page. Try to not begin leads with “The.” Be more creative. Good big, bold headlines at top.

3. Rockdale Reporter & Messenger. Good variety of coverage. Leads were great! Good sports section. One of the better ones in Division 5.

4. Colleyville News & Times. The photo/content percentage must be night and day. Need more copy and less photos. Great range of coverage. Good quality writing, just not enough. Good photography. Do more features.

BEST INDIVIDUAL PHOTO

1. Park Cities People, Phil Stephens. This is a tremendous action shot with detailed facial expression. It’s simply captivating. One of the best photos in all division.

2. Colleyville News & Times, Mike Lewis. Facial expressions capture the innocence of the two small girls. Excellent job. Simplicity at its finest.

3. Duncanville Today, Steve Hamm. This is cute. Reader interest may bring it down little. Facial expression, though, tells it all.

4. Rockdale Reporter & Messenger, Bill Cooke. The technical quality here keeps Flying Tails from being third place.

BEST USE OF PHOTOS

1. Duncanville Today. Volleyball action good, celebration shots are excellent. Color on goldfish pic was nice. Sports shots are also well cropped and active in September issue. Nice job.

2. Navasota Examiner. Your photographers are quite good. Medi-flight shot is an example of excellent compositions. Sports shots pretty good. Feature shots also well above the norm. Good job.

3. DeSoto Today. Nice angle on ‘child caring.’ Excellent photo display on football player.

4. Colleyville News & Times. Solid photography, especially in sports. However, picture pages are too crammed with shots. Edit out all but your best. Play them up. Good front page usage. You get the edge because photo content not only high quality, but very local.

Division 6 Weeklies 2,001 to 3,000

GENERAL EXCELLENCE

1. Cedar Hill Today. Page 1 impact. Bright headlines for the most part, community-minded briefs package. Nice photo package for one day. Ever consider adding words to the package? How about vignettes?

2. Lancaster Today. Impact pages. Color is a bit loud. Great head on bee story. Make one photo dominant. Opinion jumps to a news page? Compact vital stats.

3. Westlake Picayune. Clean, slick package. Organized, anchored, newsy. Love the people section. Pages, especially page one, need more impact.

4. Friendswood Journal. Good color photos, neat design. Page 1 photos offset inside. Inside needs more impact.

ADVERTISING

1. Medina Valley Times. Outstanding use of creative layout and style. Lots of art, interesting graphics and photos. Great borders. Your production people are pros.

2. Refugio County Advantage Press. Outstanding use of graphics. Even the church and sports sigs (most papers do “words in boxes”) grab attention. Bicentennial tab is clean and balanced, has great use of photos in ads. Ad production/computer person is a real pro.

3. Canyon Lake Times Guardian. Nice variety and use of spot color on Christmas page. Eye-catching football sig page. Nice, loose layout style.

4. Westlake Picayune. Progress and Christmas tabs are outstanding. All ads have good use of art, photos and interest­ing layouts. Good use of spot color and style on sports sig page. Super layout of progress tab with advertorial. Nice color in holiday tab pull-out section.

COLUMN WRITING

1. Brazorian News, Lake Jackson, Melvin Edwards. ... And writers should write. Melvin Edwards does it very, very well. Top-notch work!

2. Coppell Citizens’ Advocate, Jean Murph. Tough, to-the-point, thought provoking and daring. How many times have you been audited since Feb. 24,1995?

3. Lancaster Today, Chuck Bloom. Daddy should be proud of this column.

4. Brazorian News, Lake Jackson, Melvin Edwards. Pointed. Opinionated. Worth reading.

EDITORIALS

1. Copperas Cove Leader-Press, David G. Landmann. This quip good, straight forward, strong positioning, great writing. Good support for position, strong editorial writing.

2. Westlake Picayune, Anita Davis. Nice work, but lead would have been better if you had placed “school” in front of budget. Good writing style, nice flow.

3. Lancaster Today. Strong editorial about local school board. This editor has the guts to tell it like it is, and let the chips fall where they may. Good construction. Nice job.

4. Canyon Lake Times Guardian, Robert Stewart. Great editorial about a turnaround of the local chamber. Very well written. Sure to please and upset at the same time. The only question I have is how will incorporating the chamber make local businesses more profitable? If this had been explained it would have been perfect.

FEATURE STORY

1. Iowa Park Leader, Myrna Smith Colorful, real human interest. Good job all around. One question: Were there no photos of him from the old days, in his cowboy gear?

2. Castroville News-Bulletin, Teresa Thornton. Very well done. You focused on the kids instead of dry details about the program, and you still managed to tell the story.

3. Medina Valley Times, Natalie Spencer. Well written, lots of interesting stuff. I appreciated the extra effort to get photos of him from the war, instead of just snapping, a current mugshot.

4. Lancaster Today, Robin Gooch. Fascinating topic, but I’m frustrated at not being told how a blind player can catch passes.

NEWS WRITING

1. Lancaster Today. Leads are excellent. Stories are well written and entertaining. Tops in Division 6.

2. Medina Valley Times. Catchy leads and news, news, news. Writers use all elements of newspaper writing.

3. Brazorian News, Lake Jackson. White and Jaco offer excellent leads. Writing is concise and paper offers a lot of news for its readers.

4. Friendswood Journal. Well-rounded news coverage combined with writing quality describes this paper’s news writing.

SPORTS COVERAGE

1. Cedar Hill Today. (No comment.)

2. Lancaster Today. Excellent color photos and writing. Section is packaged very well.

3. Westlake Picayune. (No comment.)

4. Coppell Citizens’ Advocate. (No comment.)

BEST INDIVIDUAL PHOTO

1. Hays County Free Press, David White. Nice time-lapse photo. Play at top of page helped impact.

2. Lancaster Today, David Goodspeed. Good photo illustrates story with emotion. Captured feeling of event. Would have made it better.

3. Medina Valley Times, Marilyn Haas. Very nice holiday feature. You caught a nice expression on little girl’s face. I would have cropped photo a little tighter and blown it up.

4. Brazorian News, Rick Tate. Good football action. Nice cropping. Picture seems a little flat in contrast.

BEST USE OF PHOTOS

1. Lancaster Today. Outstanding work. Good composition, creativity (baseball shot just one example), excellent news value and range. Sports photos on page 9, April 27, are fantastic. Head and shoulders above the rest.

2. Cedar Hill Today. Photos above average quality. Good composition, cropping, some creativity. Photographers deserve pat on the back and maybe a pay raise! This was a solid 2^nd place, behind Lancaster.

3. Clay County Leader. Excellent page 1 news photo of bus crash. You had a wide variety of photos reflecting broad interests of community. Photo spread on Pioneer Reunion needs identification head or something to tell readers what’s going on. Variety/range and bus photo gave your entry the edge.

4. Copperas Cove Leader-Press. Cute feature photos on pages lA and lB of Nov. 23 issue. Good local action photos (sports) page 12 of Sept.21 issue. This newspaper has potential to be a contender. Don’t like the ragged right cutlines — justify. Just missed third place.

Division 7 Weeklies 1,201 to 2,000

GENERAL EXCELLENCE

1. Hometown Press, Winnie. Very nice! This is a well-balanced paper. This something to be proud of. If you focus on your specialty pages by adding a little more creativity, you’ll be perfect.

2. Alvin Sun. Great paper! Alvin sounds like such a warm town after reading all the local news. Maybe if your headlines drew more attention is the only thing that needs an improvement in my opinion.

3. Albany News. Your newspaper is very neat and clean. Focus on sticking with local news only: doing that will bring your paper far. It is obvious that there are many people working very hard on this paper. Good work. I enjoyed your story on the hospital.

4. Johnson City Record Courier. Please remember that when writing a story it’s your “art.” Opinions made or statements made through writing are discouraging to the reader.

ADVERTISING

1. Canadian Record. Great job. Enjoyed looking at ads throughout both issues.

2. Johnson City Record Courier. Dec. 21 issue was a good selection. Johnson City Bank ad and Blanco Land & Cattle Co. ads well done. Too much space in the headers of each classification. Tighten up.

3. Lake Cities Sun, Lake Dallas. Nice job with Lake Cities United Methodist Church ad. You got me to read Cemetery Clean-up Day.

4. Albany News. (No comment.)

COLUMN WRITING

1. Alvin Sun, Andy Summa What a picture. Ya little cutie!

2. Canadian Record, Laurie Ezzell Brown. Heart-pulling story. An emotion-grabber. I can almost picture your grandmother. Excellent.

3. Alvin Sun, Andy Summa. (No comment.)

4. Albany News, Pat Lidia Jones. (No comment.)

EDITORIAL

1. Albany News. Excellent job on important local issue. Seems to cover all thebases, provides background, takes a clear position and why. Very very good.

2. Canadian Record, Laurie Ezzell Brown. Beacause I’m not sure where Hemphill is in relation to Judge Kiser and the aureano case, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in how local it is. Other than thant, along wit a bit of wordiness, this is a strong, well-written editorial. Excellent job.

3. Anahuac Progress, Sue Hawthorne. Good relevant meaningful edtiroial that is almost done in by cluncky writing. Nice to see local editorials in a paper this small.

4. Dublin Citizen, Karen Wright. Nice effort on an important topic. Too many questions in the editorial, and the lead is weak. Personally I would have made more of emotionalism issue on other projects (pot holes, water quality et. al.) and how it affected this decision Still, a fine effort.

EFEATURE STORY

1. Canadian Record, Laurie Ezzell Brown. Woodworker: Layout and photos excellent. Story’s lead meanders a lot, but story itself is very interesting and written with a touch of the poet. Note: It would have been better not to have overwritten the lead so much and let the artist melt us in his own words sooner.

2. Crowley Review, Nancy Huckaby. Transplant: Touching tale, and thorough. Good interviews with parents.

3. Dripping Springs Dispatch, Dale Roberson. Beaten Teen: Story needs more quotes but is a well-written update on the young man s case.

4. Alvin Sun, Kristie Watthuber. Dresden: Photo of Mrs. Hocken is weak link. A simple portrait showing her personality would have been preferable to this staged shot. Story is succinct, yet complete. Timeliness of anniversary flows well within her story. Lead doesn’t really make sense, but story overcomes it.

NEWS WRITING

1. Lake Cities Sun, Lake Dallas. Good-looking paper! Good-looking paper! Good leads, strong writing, coverage get my vote.

2. Springtown Epigraph. Hey Springtown, I like your style. Great looking and easy to read publication.

3. Malakoff News. Good job. Dylan Thompson story was well written, reflects the care involved in writing such a piece.

4. Dublin Citizen. Good news coverage. Leads are a little lengthy, but get the reader involved. Good use of quotes throughout.

SPORTS COVERAGE

(No comments on entries.)

1. Palacios Beacon.

2. Canadian Record.

3. Hometown Press, Winnie.

4. Dripping Springs Dispatch.

BEST INDIVIDUAL PHOTO

1. Albany News. Very good. Facial expressions on youngsters tell it all.

2. Winters Enterprise. This is precious. Quality keeps it from being first.

3. Hometown Press, Winnie. Good all the way. Almost second place and not far from 1st. Quality brings it down some.

4. Alvin Sun, Kristie Wattbuher. Good, but quality and sharpness hurt it some.

BEST USE OF PHOTOS

1. Friona Star. Judging weighted to tornado issue. Miss Friona photo would’ve looked better black and white or full color and three columns wide, not green. Great choice of heavyweight hi-brite for tornado ‘souvenir. Excellent presswork on photos. Photos would look nicer bordered.

2. Albany News. Very nice style with shaded shadow box and headline cutline. The others should be bordered, though.

3. Hometown Press, Winnie. Good cutline and photo on Gatorfest front page. Good, balanced choice on sizing and layout of Ricefest spread.

4. Canadian Record. Firefighter spread could’ve used more action shots. Storm photos great. Good-looking overall paper.

Division 8 Weeklies 1,200 or less

GENERAL EXCELLENCE

1. Keene Reporter. I like that editorial page, and a good local cartoonist is like gold! Good work, Reggie. Would like to see other special sections, sports and education, perhaps. Well done, staff.

2. Burnet Citizens Gazette. Nicely organized sections carry good variety of news. Scott White is a talented writer, pays close attention to detail. “Gotcha!” seems frivolous for someone accused of a violent crime. Some photos could be cropped tighter.

3. White Oak Independent. Nice job! Photos clear, relevant to stories. Some could be bigger, some could be cropped tighter. Good overall layout, clean and organized. I like modular. Think about packaging stories in boxes for added definition.

4. Suburban Tribune, Baich Springs. Front-page design is excellent, but is it always the same? I really like teaser line on top.

ADVERTISING

1. White Oak Independent. Nice effort to move two-by-two’s above fold. Advertisers are sure to appreciate! Easy to see at a glimpse what each ad is selling. Good job!

2. Joshua Tribune. Great job, ad staff, special section is great. Classified section is big and great. Some ads could benefit from stronger catch phrases; others need less text. Convince those advertisers the object is to get noticed, not to list an entire inventory.

3. Sutton County Leader. Nice classifieds, but so many graphic borders make me dizzy. Busy borders on regular items, such as menus, competes with paid ads. Tone them down. They don’t pay.

4. Hico News Review. Good variety of clients. Good variety of borders and styles in business directory. Nice special edition. More artwork would have helped

COLUMN WRITING

1. Kerens Tribune, Loyd Cook. I liked it!

3. White Oak Independent, Van Craddock. Clever, witty, easy reading. Well written. Enjoyable.

4. Ingleside Index, John Lowman. Witty, entertaining different from what I’ve read today.

EDITORIALS

1. Hamlin Herald, Rick Craig. You handle a matter of significance to city exactly as an editorial writer should. Your sense of balance, coupled with pro/con, is outstanding. You are a messenger of substance. Readers, whether they like you or not, know you have done your homework.

2. The International Presidio Paper. Solid, forceful editorial, well-tempered, devised to address a sensitive local issue. You have responsibly addressed an issue without passion but with direct command to seek a quick, logical solution, and you have responded in a fine journalistic fashion.

3. Kerens Tribune, Loyd Cook. Well-presented matter of community interest shows you have a solid grasp of natural editorial writing. An epistle of value.

4. Burnet Citizens Gazette. Strong, logical approach to a subject of vital local interest. Obviously, there must be a split in the community as to the worth and need for such an amenity. You explain overriding benefits for one and all. Well directed to the community.

FEATURE STORY

1. White Oak Independent, Brandy Bridges and Leslie Lawrence. Love the human interest angle. Story flows.

2. Burnet Citizens Gazette, Rick Espitia. Great human interest story, nice layout, clean, crisp writing.

3. Keene Reporter, Terry Evans. Hard to send a story like this to Oklahoma and not place. It was very well done and showed impact on all of us Thanks for the new look.

4. Joshua Tribune, Terry Evans. Nice way to show the unison of this pair. Layout delivers. Keep up the good work.

NEWS WRITING

1. White Oak Independent. Yes! This paper has an attitude and I like it. Great leads, great quotes and good organization. Jeff Newman can flat-out write, as can the rest of the staff. Election and school board coverage is outstanding. Well done.

3. Joshua Tribune. Children Dealing With Blast has great lead. Story is comprehensive and pretty good. Daughters to Work pieces were a nice touch. Overall, a good effort.

4. Booker News. Pretty darn good writing. Please give your writers credit with bylines. Your leads are better than average. You have a good mix of news and features. I liked aircraft story. Sports good. Good use of quotes throughout.

SPORTS COVERAGE

1. Burnet Citizens Gazette. (No comment.)

2. White Oak Independent. (No comment.)

3. Kerens Tribune. Use larger headline over main story.

4. Keene Reporter. (No comment.)

BEST INDIVIDUAL PHOTO

1. White Oak Independent. Fun photo, good action.

2. Hart Beat, Don Williams. Nice angle of accident shows rail damage, overturned cars. Why not one column wider?

3. Morton Tribune. Nice feature photo. I would have cropped a little tighter on left and top to bring up size of sheep.

4. Burnet Citizens Gazette, Rick Espitia. Good facial expressions, nice angle through fence caught ball in air. Fun feature photo.

BEST USE OF PHOTOS

1. White Oak Independent. Wow! Somebody has been working very hard on these photos! Great job!

2. Wimberley View. Excellent work. Love framing around photos. Suggest getting “PhotoShop B & W” manual if you don’t have it already.

3. Morton Tribune. Nice paper, very clean copy. Something to be proud of.

4. Hamlin Herald. Nice, clean work. Start wrapping text around unusual photo shapes and you’ll be really surprised at what you end up with.