The Bainbridge Island Review won first place in General Excellence at the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association convention in Lacey Oct. 5.
It was the third time in four years the paper was among the top three for the award, and the second time it’s won.
“That just shows the quality of the staff we continue to have here, despite a few changes over the years,” editor Steve Powell said.
The entire staff was honored: Tyler Shuey, Elisha Meyer, Molly Hetherwick, Nicholas Zeller-Singh, Brenda Jorgens, Tracy Long, Han Bui and the Kitsap Design Team. The staff also won an award for best website for the Review. Individual awards were won for news, photography and advertising.
Hetherwick won first-place for history feature and took home two third-place awards for short personality profile and animal feature. Powell won a first place for arts feature and third places for investigative reporting and general long feature story. Former reporter Nancy Treder won an award for photography, as did freelancer Damon Williams. Freelancer Tom Tyner won an award for column writing. Former sports writer Zeller-Singh won numerous awards.
Kitsap News Group’s other weekly papers also won many awards.
The Port Orchard Independent took home 11 awards, including six total for Meyer, four first-place awards for freelancer Mike De Felice, and a first-place nod for Zeller-Singh.
Meyer received three first-place awards for comprehensive coverage, short general feature and history feature; a second-place nod for animal feature; and two third-place awards for long news story and news of the weird. De Felice won awards for a crime & court story, sports news story, long personality profile and business feature. Zeller-Singh won for long general feature story.
The North Kitsap Herald won four awards, including a first-place nod for comprehensive coverage for Shuey, Meyer and Hetherwick. Shuey also took home two third-place awards for health/medical story and lifestyle feature. Hetherwick received a second-place nod for breaking news story.
For advertising, Jorgens, Long, Bui and Kitsap Design Team took home four first-place awards for youth-oriented content, humorous ad, use of clip art, and 1/2 page or larger ad; two second-place awards for use of small space and humorous ad; and three third-place awards for branding ad, ads featuring animals, and arts & entertainment ads.