For the first time in its 35-year history, the Western Wayne News received the highest honor of the Hoosier State Press Association’s annual awards contest, the Blue Ribbon award. Judges give the award to only one daily and one non-daily Indiana newspaper of any size to recognize outstanding overall editorial quality.
WWN owner and publisher Chris Hardie accepted the award at a Sept. 25 HSPA awards luncheon in Indianapolis on behalf of the newspaper’s entire team. Editorial team members being feted are news reporters Millicent Martin Emery, Mike Emery and Lorin Williams; sports reporter Dan Harney, copy editor Sophia Lyons, and Hardie.
“I’m delighted to see the people who work so hard day in and out to produce WWN recognized in this astounding, unexpected way,” Hardie said. “We might be ‘just’ a weekly paper in East Central Indiana, but we try to treat every edition of the newspaper and every article we write with the greatest care for our community and highest standards of journalism. We’re proud of the result, and we thank HSPA and its members for celebrating that with us.”
WWN received several other awards this year. Harney won third place for Best Sports News or Feature Coverage. Photographer Sherry Stuart won third place for Best Sports Action Photo. Hardie won second place for Best General Commentary. Hardie and digital editor Kelsey Mackey won first place for Best Website.
The four awards were issued in WWN’s category of non-daily print newspapers with circulation of 1,500 or more.