Herald and Journal, Feb. 5, 2001

Journal wins general excellence award

Among newspapers under 1,500 in circulation, the Winsted-Lester Prairie Journal took first place in the "general excellence" category in the Minnesota Newspaper Association's (MNA) 1999-2000 Better Newspaper Contest.

This was the first award ever for the journal in that category, which is based on all aspects of a newspaper's content.

Judge's comments were: "Excellent mix of news topics. Clean layout. Nice ad placement and quality of ad production. Lots of photos with pretty good quality. I liked the editorial page. Very nice classified pages."

In addition, Ryan Gueningsman and Jane Otto received first place in the photo story category for their coverage of last year's Winstock country music festival.

"You can feel the event from the performers to the audience. All aspects of photography were used from close-ups to overalls - night and day. Great Job!" were the judge's comments.

Former Journal editor Luis Puga received a second place award in the social issues feature story category for a feature on the McLeod Alliance domestic abuse intervention project.

Otto also received honorable mention in the same category for a feature on the water quality of Winsted Lake.

Andrea Vargo of the Howard Lake-Waverly Herald, the Journal's sister newspaper, won second place in the human interest feature story category for a feature on adopted Russian children.

The awards were presented at the MNA convention Jan. 26-27 in Bloomington.

Howard Lake-Waverly Herald & Winsted-Lester Prairie Journal
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