Texas Press Association
Community Service
Special Sections
Sweepstakes Winners
Division 1 Dailies 8,000 to 150,000
1st Odessa American - 500 points
Division 2 Dailies less than 8,000
Waxahachie Daily Light - 500 points
Division 3 Semiweeklies more than 4,000
Williamson County Sun / Sunday Sun, Georgetown - 675 points
Division 4 Semiweeklies less than 4,000
Lampasas Dispatch Record - 400 points
Division 5 Weeklies more than 3,500
Park Cities People, Dallas - 400 points
Division 6 Weeklies 1,500 to 3,500
LaMarque Times - 325 points
Division 7 Weeklies less than 1,500
Celina Record - 350 points
Community Service
DAILY DIVISION
1st-MIDLAND REPORTER-TELEGRAM. Excellent and well thought out project that addresses concerns and attitudes across the country. Photos and graphic elements increase the readability of this project. Well done!
2nd-GALVESTON DAILY NEWS. What a great idea — be troubled by a report by the Chamber of Commerce and at the same time question its validity — and then find out for yourself exactly what’s going on in Galveston. By examining the five community issues that could be at the heart of why Galveston doesn’t attract more residents, you do a service to the community and yourselves. Your work should prompt a myriad of agencies to examine how they do business. You’ve set the ground work for those investigations, which hopefully will lead to change. Graphics helped pull the reader into the stories. Good tie using both news and opinion pages to make your points.
3rd-PECOS ENTERPRISE. Karen Oglesby is to be commended for her tenacity, and newspaper applauded for its effort in focusing on deficiency in education program and trying to make a change.
4th-BEAUMONT ENTERPRISE. Overwhelming! Thorough! Pleasant and interesting to look at. But golly, it’s too much of a good thing. You wore us Out! This was more a textbook approach to bringing understanding to a situation rather than a journalism approach. What was your readership on this? Some of the clips were out of order. We wondered if it would have gone together better had it read consecutively. Good use of photographs, which were well chosen. Especially like a Vietnamese praying, the old Indian and Little League photos.
WEEKLY DIVISION
1st-BEEVILLE BEE-PICAYUNE.
The winner hands down! You have done an excellent job of going beyond press releases and routine meeting coverage, providing good graphics, writing news stories and editorials, digging for information, analyzing events, going outside your community to get the news. An all-around top notch effort!
2nd-WINNSBORO NEWS. A strong effort! I applaud your effort to get involved in city government beyond mere reporting. I too have some difficulties with the blending of news and opinion in a few cases — always a problem with small newspaper staffs.
3rd-BLANCO COUNTY NEWS I live in an Oregon Trail town and recognize the importance of history. What you paper has helped do will be remembered for years, I’m sure.
4th-POLK COUNTY ENTERPRISE, Livingston. It sounds like you played a role in uniting our community.
Special Sections
DIVISION A (No comments) DAILY
1st-WAXAHACHIEDAILYLIGHT
2nd-BROWNWOOD BULLETIN
3rd-GALVESTON DAILY NEWS
4th-ROSENBERG HERALD-COASTER
DIVISION B SEMIWEEKLY
1st-THE SUNDAY SUN, Georgetown. The Sunday Sun’s Georgetown Guidebook was an easy winner in this category, even though others entered sections with more compelling subjects. The guide was well done from its colorful cover to personal details in stories. The size is easy to handle. The table of contents on page 2 makes it clear what’s inside, although the numbering system on the table of contents page wasn’t obvious enough. The ads generally appear to be well done, with the Georgetown bank ad on the back of the third section standing out as well done and the King Saver ad attached to the map standing out as garish. Map of the city is helpful, too bad King Saver address blots out part of it.
2nd-HOOD COUNTY NEWS, Granbury. Nice visitor guide. Design is clear; reader should be able to find out a good deal about the Hood County area. Ads are clear and generally use color well. The winner in this category had a friendlier approach and took topics from a more offbeat angle. That’s the difference.
3rd-PEARLAND JOURNAL. This was a much better subject than most in this category, but it could have been a much better section. There’s a lot of interesting information in the section but it’s in stories that sound like they came out of a drug-education textbook. Some stories offering “tips” or “symptoms” aren’t attributed to any source — why? The news staff could have developed much more interesting copy by taking the same subjects and putting real people in them. Good job of putting ads with the subject. But overall, the section doesn’t seem to meet its potential.
4th-ROCKWALL COUNTY JOURNAL-SUCCESS. As guides go, this one should be fairly useful to readers. It also appears to be successful from an advertising standpoint. Consider making ads into modular blocks or even page blocks to give readers an easier time getting through this many pages. Also, the index should go at the front, where it can be used.
DIVISION C WEEKLY
1st-THE BUSINESS PRESS, Fort Worth. Very clean, easy to look at presentation and good use of reverses, white space in ads and around heads. I particularly liked the small “Looking Back,” “Key Events,” “Players” — made interesting reading for someone not willing to wade into the deeper stuff. Deeper stuff, however, is easy to read and written for non-economists.
2nd-DeSOTO NEWS ADVERTISER. (Football 1990) Writing is lively and the busy design supports sports theme. Good easy to find with the team titles heading the pages. Ads back up the copy and stay out of the way.
3rd-BANDERA BULLETIN. Clean design, heads on each page make the section easy to follow and the Find it boxes help the reader. Good design on the photo pages and feature pages. Writing could be livelier. Heads are strong. If more ads had supported the “Come to Bandera’ theme, would have strengthened impact of section.
4th-PLEASANTON EXPRESS. Busy, newsy presentation. Focus of edition is clear in sect. 1, and carries through the section. Ads carry the theme through the rest of the paper, supported by pics. I imagine this was hard to design but it works well. I particularly like the ad support for the theme.
DIVISION D WEEKLY
1st-COPPERAS COVE LEADER-PRESS. This entry is user-friendly and answers all questions newcomers would ask. Starts with an introduction on page 7 that orients readers to the contents (page 3). Honesty in content — admits 10% unemployment! Appears group of staffers sat down prior to production and asked themselves, “What do I want to know as a newcomer?” Looks like you made a lot of money. Good ad support. Ads clearly designed, good variety. Too many internal jumps! Impressed with coverage of radio and television in the area. In general, both also thought quality diminished somewhat in the last 20 pages. Good mix of information and history.
2nd-BLANCO COUNTY NEWS, Blanco. If I were a hunter, I would find this guide indispensible. Promotes responsible hunting by detailing state regulations and encouraging hunters to respect habitat. Clean production. Impressed with the fact there are no huge NRA ads. Focuses on sport, not heavy artillery. Good variety of ads. Good ad line. Copy tends to be dry and unimaginative, but it gets the point across. Could have done something special in the double truck. Use of color on truck.
3rd-CELINA RECORD. Excellent front page, although I would have bordered the photo. Like the concept of “Where Are They Now” and other imaginative ideas. Judge 2 loved the “War Room” idea. More insightful than the many other football previews. Good useage of faces, good ads and ad line. Liked the tournament list on page 30, gets readers physically involved with the section. Double truck needed its own headline. Left us confused.
4th-LaMARQUE TIMES. We judged much larger (100-plus) page entries that lacked the focus of this event promotion piece. In our opinion, this 4-pager does exactly what it needed to, and no more. It printed an easy to use schedule, features of weekend highlights, and benefits from clear production and strong ad support. Generally useful and attractive. Glad you included a “welcome” introduction explaination.
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