Two long-time AWNA members win Golden Dozen awards

Congratulations to George Brown and Joan Plaxton, who received  ‘Golden Dozen’ awards at the recent ISWNE (International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors) conference in Bellingham, Washington.

Theirs were among the best dozen editorials submitted in 2012 to ISWNE, which has held the annual competition since 1961.

Plaxton, publisher of the Valleyview Valley Views, provokes thought about what the ‘Occupy Movement’ means in international, national and local terms.  It was her fourth Golden Dozen award.
Read her editorial: The Occupy Movement has a purpose

Brown, Editor of the Ponoka News, won his third ‘Golden Dozen’ award for his editorial that challenged school board officials, libraries, and the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council for their censorship of classic works of literature and songs.
Read his editorial: “Decide for yourself what words are offensive”

It was a good year for Canadian journalists, as Paul MacNeill, publisher of the Eastern Graphic in Montague, PEI, also won a Golden Dozen award and Vernon Oickle, Editor of the Lunenburg County Progress Bulletin in Nova Scotia, won the 2012 Golden Quill award, representing the ‘best of the best’ editorials. Oickle is just the third Canadian to win the award, following in the footsteps of Jim and Paul MacNeill, who won the award in 1994 and 2002 respectively.

Visit the ISWNE web page to read more about the Bellingham conference, the awards event and download the GrassRoots Editor to read about the rest of the 2012 winners.
The winning editorials, text links above, and provided by ISWNE. Enjoy.