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Herald claims 11 awards in national competition

The Durango Herald entered the annual Inland Press Association journalism contest for the first time this year and recently learned it captured 11 awards in the national competition. The association includes 1,200 member newspapers representing all 50 states.

The Herald captured first place honors for front page design. The entry included three front pages published on dates chosen by IPA and one selected by Herald editors. Judges from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism said the Herald’s front pages have “a clean, sophisticated personality that allows for occasional visual surprise. Overall strong composition framed in elegant typography, color and graphics.”

Herald reporters won second place awards in two of the three writing categories in the competition. Chase Olivarius-McAllister was honored in the investigative reporting category for her account of a federal probe of possible labor law violations at a local restaurant. Joe Hanel, formerly the Herald’s Denver bureau chief, received second place honors in explanatory reporting for “Fire Trap,” a series examining Colorado’s struggles in its fight against wildfires.

Olivarius-McAllister joined the Herald staff in 2011 as an intern and became a staff writer in 2012. She is a graduate of Yale University. Hanel served as bureau chief in Denver from 2005 until earlier this year when he left to take a communications job with a health policy think tank.

Herald designers took second and third place awards, and an honorable mention, for use of photos in news stories. The second place honor was for photo use in a series that explored answers to pollution problems caused by toxic effluent flowing into the Animas River from abandoned mines in Silverton. Photo use on a second day of this series earned an honorable mention. Presentation of photos in Hanel’s “Fire Trap” series took third place honors.

Herald photographers walked away with four honors, including a third place award for news photography and three honorable mentions – two for picture stories and one for portrait photography. Shaun Stanley took the third place award for breaking news coverage of a rock slide. Jerry McBride received two honorable mentions for picture stories detailing restoration of a railroad passenger car and for photos published as part of the Silverton mine pollution series. Steve Lewis earned an honorable mention for a portrait photo of a musician playing a wind instrument.

Stanley joined the Herald staff in 2009 as a multimedia journalist. He has more than 25 years of professional experience, including 17 years as a senior photojournalist for The Denver Post. He also worked for daily newspapers in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. He is a graduate of Randolph Community College and the Colorado Film and Video Institute. McBride, the Herald’s chief photo/video editor, joined the staff in 1997 after working for a daily newspaper in Tennessee. He attended the University of Nebraska. Lewis came to the Herald in 2009 from the Cortez Journal, where he was a staff photographer for 18 months. He is a graduate of Texas Tech University.

In a special sweepstakes category in which judges evaluated creative use of multimedia tools in storytelling, the Herald received an honorable mention for stories in the “Fire Trap” series that included photo galleries, videos and audio interviews. Judges said “great use of visuals, reporting and organization make this special report one of the best.” The multimedia sweepstakes was open to all of the nation’s newspapers, including its largest dailies.



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