• Local Honors Front Page Award Winners
  
  • Click here for an Album of Some of the Winning Photo Entries
    
  • Click here for a Photo Album of Some of the Winners
    
• SEIU's Bonnita Spikes Named First Recipient of Herb Block Community Service Award
  

Ollove and Makely Named Local's Front Page Awards Grand Prize Winners
Pulitzer Winners from Washington Post Clinch Local's Investigative Award

Two Baltimore Sun reporters were named Grand Prize winners and best in their categories in Local 32035's Front Page Awards for work published in 2001.

At the awards presentation May 18, Michael Ollove was awarded first place for Feature Story as well as the Bill Pryor Memorial Grand Prize for Writing for his entry titled "The Lessons of Lynchburg."

His Sun colleague, John Makely, won the National News Photography award and the Bill Pryor Memorial Grand Prize for Photography for his entry "Souls Searching."

Three Washington Post reporters -- Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham, and Sarah Cohen, whose work also won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year, received the Morton Mintz Award for Investigative Reporting for their entry titled "The District's Lost Children." The series won the Pulitzer for Local News Reporting.

Other multiple winners were (in alphabetical order):

Anthony De Feo, Catholic News Service - First place in Illustration Design ("Weight Loss and Exercise") and honorable mentions in News Graphics Design and Marketing and Promotion Design.

Karl M. Ferron, Sun - First place in Sports Photography ("In The Swing Of Spring") and Local News Photography ("Chasing Shadows"), and honorable mention in Feature Photography.

Doug Kapustin, Sun - Honorable mentions in Feature Photography and Portrait Photography.

Jed Kirschbaum, Sun - First place in Portrait Photography ("The Informant") and Picture Story ("The Farmer's Wife"), and honorable mention in Sports Photography and in the Bernie Harrison Memorial Award for Commentary.

Ray Lustig, Post - Two honorable mentions in National News Photography.

Alec MacGillis, Sun - Honorable mentions in the Frank C. Porter Memorial Award for Labor and Business Reporting and in National News Reporting.

Jon Morgan, Sun - First place in Sports Reporting for "Betting On Box, TVG Offers Races" and an honorable mention in the Frank C. Porter Memorial Award for Labor and Business Reporting.

Scott Shane, Sun - Winner of the Bernie Harrison Memorial Award for Commentary ("How Can City Rebuild in an Open Drug Market?") and an honorable mention in National News Reporting.

Sally Squires, Post - First place ("Soft Drinks, Hard Facts") and an honorable mention in Public Service Reporting.

Mary Watters, Fingerhut, Powers, Smith and Associates - First place ("Hospital Industry's Black Eye") and an honorable mention in Headline Writing.

The other Front Page Award winners:

Frank C. Porter Memorial Award for Labor And Business Reporting: David Hilzenrath (Post), "The Numbers Crunch" series. An honorable mention went to Michael Dresser, Jon Morgan and William Patalon III (Sun).

Bernie Harrison Memorial Award For Commentary: Scott Shane (Sun), "How Can City Rebuild In An Open Drug Market?"

National News Reporting: Peter Perl (Post), "The Gospel According To Tom DeLay". An honorable mention went to Rick Weiss (Post).

Feature writing: Honorable mentions to Stephanie Shapiro (Sun), and Joan Jacobson (Sun)

Local news reporting: Amanda J. Crawford and Andrea F. Siegel (Sun), "Builder's Past Raises Questions". An honorable mention went to Diana K. Sugg (Sun)

Non-Daily Specialized Technical Reporting: Gerald B. Silverman (Bureau of National Affairs Correspondents), "Health Care Lobbying Expenses Rise In New York, As Issues Take Center Stage"

Criticism: Sarah Kaufman (Post), "Universal Ballet's Really Big Show"

Feature photography: Kenneth K. Lam, Baltimore Sun, "Victorious Maximus"

Local news photography: An honorable mention to Nanine Hartzenbusch (Sun)

Labor Promotional Campaign: Christine Kirsch and Elizabeth Ellen (Fingerhut, Powers, Smith & Associates), "Delta Organizing Campaign"

Illustration Design: Honorable mention to Paolina Simonpietri (FPSA).

There were no awards in the categories of Unit Publication and Web Site Design. And there was no grand prize awarded in Design.

The panel juding the awards consisted of journalists and photographers working in the news and information industry. Three of the five writing judges have Guild backgrounds.

Deborah Zabarenko, a member of the New York City Newspaper Guild, is a shop steward in the Reuters Washington office. Dawn Kopecki, a member of the Independent Association of Publishing Employees (the "Dow Jones local"), works for the Dow Jones Newswire. Darlene Superville is active in the Washington unit of the Associated Press, whose workers are covered by a contract serviced by the Wire Service Guild, Local 31222.

The other writing judges were Ted Cron, of Magnificent Publishers, and documentarian Helene Parenteau. Photography and design judges were freelance photographers Walt Calahan and Richard Hamilton.

The Front Page Awards were conferred during a May 18 ceremony at WBNG headquarters in Washington.

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SEIU's Bonnita Spikes Named First Recipient of Local's Herb Block Award

Bonnita Spikes, an activist in one of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild's smallest bargaining units, is the recipient of the first Herb Block Community Service Award.

Spikes works for SEIU Local 500 and is active in the 10-member-strong Montgomery County Council of Supporting Services Employees bargaining unit. She serves as WBNG's human rights coordinator and also is on the executive board of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, where she chairs the minority human rights board.

"Though she holds one of the more stressful and time-consuming jobs at the local, Bonnita still spends much of her free time helping the needy," said the MCCSSE unit's former chair, Keith Willis, in his service award nomination letter. "Her enthusiasm for labor work seems to never run out and somehow she finds time for other community work ... If you want to find Bonnita, she will not be at home, instead she commits her boundless energy to helping those who are struggling."

The Herb Block Community Service Award is named for the longtime Washington Post editorial cartoonist who died last year. Block, a charter member of the Newspaper Guild's first local (in Cleveland nearly 70 years ago), left $50,000 to the Washington-Baltimore Guild and another $50,000 to The Newspaper Guild-CWA.

Three other Guild service awards were presented at ceremonies May 18.

Ann Tran and Ann Marie Ditchey of the Washington Post shared the Organizer of the Year award. "The two worked energetically and diligently as a team to sign up more than a score of new members during 2001," said WBNG Local Representative Calvin Zon in his nomination letter.

Two other Post workers, Darlene Meyer and Rick Weiss, also shared a service award. Co-chairs of WBNG's largest bargaining unit, Meyer and Weiss won the Unit Officer of the Year award. "They are deserving of this award for leading a revitalization of the Post Guild unit," said Local Representative Rick Ehrmann in his nomination letter. Their efforts mean that the unit now has "a significant number of new activists taking responsibility for organizing, mobilizing and grievance handling."

Willis, the former MCCSSE unit chair, was named winner of the Nadine Grinder Memorial Award for Shop Steward of the Year, which honors a storied Washington Post shop steward. Fellow service award-winner Spikes wrote: "Keith Willis is a very compassionate person and believes strongly in the members, the union and in correcting injustices groups face across the board. He found time in his busy schedule to take me under his wing and teach me the ropes and politics of the union."

Judging for the Guild Service Awards was conducted by a panel of Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild activists.

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