Democrat wins 28 awards in contest

Natchez Staff

Published Sunday, June 17, 2001

The Natchez Democrat won 28 awards, including the General Excellence award, in the Mississippi Press Association's 2000 Better Newspaper Contest.

The awards were presented during the MPA's summer convention in Tunica on Saturday. The Democrat won seven first place awards including:

General news story, Kerry Whipple

In-depth and investigative reporting, Nita McCann

Sports feature photo, Kevin Cooper

Feature photo, Laura Skelding

Pictorial series, Melanie Duncan

Best front pages, Kevin Cooper and Kerry Whipple

Best Lifestyle section

General excellence, daily newspapers circulation 9,000 to 20,000

The Democrat and its staff also received awards for:

Best game story, honorable mention, Nick Adams

Best general interest column, third place, Kerry Whipple

Best commentary column, second place, Kerry Whipple

Best commentary column, honorable mention, Kevin Cooper

Feature story, second place, Kerry Whipple

General news photograph, third place, Kevin Cooper

Spot news photograph, second place, Laura Skelding

Sports feature photograph, second place, Laura Skelding

Sports action photograph, third place, Melanie Duncan

Pictorial series, third place, Melanie Duncan

Picture-story combination, honorable mention, Kerry Whipple and Melanie Duncan

Personality portrait, second place, Kevin Cooper

Personality portrait, third place, Ben Hillyer

Personality portrait, honorable mention, Kevin Cooper

Editorial page, second place

Sports page or section, second place

Special section, second place, Profile 2000

Special section, third place, "A time to remember"

Layout and design, second place

Headline writing, second place, Stacy Graning

This marks the fourth year in a row The Democrat has been recognized as Mississippi's best community daily newspaper. Other general excellence winners included The Clarion-Ledger and The Daily Corinthian, who won the awards in their circulation categories.

The Freedom of Information award went to The Commercial Dispatch, while the Community Service Award was presented to the Delta Democrat Times.

Marie Harris of The Sun Herald picked up the J. Oliver Emmerich Editorial award. Photo of the Year went to Jonathon Alford of The Daily Leader for a picture that also won the Mississippi AP Photo of the Year for 2000.

Charles Overby, chairman and CEO of The Freedom Forum, and political columnist Sid Salter of The Clarion-Ledger were inducted into the MPA Hall of Fame.