Star-Herald wins six press association awards

    AUBURN, Maine — The Star-Herald won six awards in the 2014 Maine Press Association Better Newspaper Contest as the organization held its annual fall conference Oct. 18 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Auburn.
Staff Writer Scott Mitchell Johnson won second-place awards in the Education Story and the Arts/Lifestyle Feature categories while he teamed up with co-workers — Kathy McCarty, Kevin Sjoberg, Mary-Alice Boulier, Scott Galipeau and Gary Bowden — for a second-place Self Promotion certificate.
Johnson and McCarty also worked together for runner-up honors in the Business Section category.
Staff Writer McCarty’s entry in the People Photo division earned a third-place award. Jane Mavor-Small, who is a sports page contributor, took second place in the Sports Photo competition for large weeklies.
The Portland Press Herald, Mount Desert Islander, York Weekly and Maine Sunday Telegram were the major winners in the Better Newspaper Contest General Excellence-Print division while the Wiscasset Newspaper/Boothbay Register and Press Herald/Telegram received top honors for General Excellence-Digital. This was the first year that the MPA held a separate contest for digital entries, reflecting the increased viewership of Internet news sites.
The Journalist of the Year award went to Colin Woodard of the Portland Press Herald; the Advertising Person of the Year is Brenda Allen of the Portland Press Herald; Dominik Lobkowicz of the Lincoln County News won the Bob Drake Young Writers Award; and Gary Gagne of the Maine Daily Newspaper Network was honored by the MPA as the Unsung Hero of the Year.
The new Hall of Fame inductees were the late Robert Crocker, a long-time Associated Press state house reporter; and Richard Dudman, a retired St. Louis Post Dispatch correspondent and editorial writer for the Bangor Daily News.
A complete list of 2014 award winners has been posted on http://mainepress.wordpress.com.