BILOXI — The Star-Herald won awards in eight of the 22 categories it entered in the Mississippi Press Associations Better Newspaper Contest.
Competing in the division with large weeklies (circulation of more than 4,000), the paper finished third in the Community Service category for its efforts in helping rally support for a toy drive for the children of Waveland at Christmas.
“This is the award we’re most proud of,” said Mark Thornton, editor and publisher of The Star-Herald. “It’s nice to show that we can take a leadership role in the community to do some good.”
Thornton won first place in the Feature Photograph category for a snapshot of a silhouetted 12-year-old dunking in his lowered front-yard goal just before the NCAA Tournament got under way in March.
Thornton’s columns won second in the Best Commentary category and third in the Best General Interest category and he won third place for Best Editorials.
He was second in the Best Headline category, as well.
Thornton also took the second- and a third-place award in the Best Sports Feature category for stories on World Series pitcher Roy Oswalt of Weir and Durant’s state championship in basketball, respectively.
The awards were handed out at the Mississippi Press Association’s annual convention in Biloxi last week.
A total of 2,853 entries were submitted by 71 state newspapers — 49 weeklies and 22 dailies.
The contest was judged by the Oregon Press Association.
