NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Oklahoma Press Association (405) 499-0026 Lisa Sutliff, Member Services Director [email protected]

Press Association announces winners of annual contest virtually. Nine newspapers receive top honors in annual contest.

The Oklahoma Press Association announced the winners of the 2019 Better Newspaper Contest Awards in a video released on June 15. “Although the 2020 OPA Convention was postponed this year, we knew it was vitally important to announce the winners of the newspaper contest,” said Lisa Sutliff, OPA member services director. “We discussed several options and decided to create a video showcasing all the award winners.” The video is available to view at www.okpress.com/contest. Winners of this year’s Sequoyah Awards, the highest honor in the OPA Better Newspaper Contest, were revealed in the video. In the daily divisions, winners were The Norman Transcript, The Ardmoreite and McAlester News-Capital. Sequoyah winners in the weekly divisions were The Purcell Register, Countywide & Sun, Wagoner County American-Tribune, Tri-County Herald and Sequoyah County Times. The Oklahoma Daily at the University of Oklahoma was the winner in the college division. The Sequoyah Award is determined by the amount of points accumulated in eight of the contest’s 20 categories: News Content, Layout & Design, Advertising, Editorial Writing, Photography, Sports Coverage, Sales Promotion and Community Leadership. The contest also included a Digital Media category in three divisions – dailies, weeklies and colleges. Individuals were able to enter in 11 categories – News Story, Feature Story, Sports Story, In-Depth Reporting, Column Writing, Small Space Ad, Large Space Ad, News Photograph, Feature Photograph, Sports Photograph and Front Page Design. Members of the Maine Press Association judged more than 1,300 entries from 74 Oklahoma newspapers. A complete list of winners in the 2019 OPA Better Newspaper Contest is available on the OPA website at www.okpress.com/contest. Several additional awards were announced in the video: • The Norman Transcript received first place in the OPA Magazine Contest, which debuted last year. • Michael Clements, Durant Democrat, winner of the ONF Ray Lokey Memorial Award for Excellence in Reporting. • Kelly Bostian, Tulsa World, winner of the ONF Joseph H. Edwards Outdoor Writer of the Year. • Kim Poindexter, Tahlequah Daily Press, winner of the Editorial Sweepstakes Award, sponsored by ONG. • Jaden Jennings, Tri-County Herald, winner of the Column Sweepstakes Award, sponsored by ONG. • Billy Hefton, Enid News & Eagle, winner of the Daily Photo of the Year, sponsored by OGE Energy Corp. • Chuck Reherman, Yukon Progress, winner of the Weekly Photo of the Year, sponsored by OGE Energy Corp.

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