Ashland Beacon Brings Home First Place at the Annual KPA Awards
Sasha Bush
The Ashland Beacon
If you want to be the best… then you have to beat the best! That’s exactly what the staff of The Greater Ashland Beacon accomplished recently when they brought home that coveted first place editorial award for being named the best newspaper in the “Weekly 1” category at the Kentucky Press Association annual awards ceremony.
Coming in first place is no small feat in this category because the competition was fierce. Second place went to The Falmouth Outlook, which was founded in 1907. Third place went to The Bourbon County Citizen, which is one of the oldest newspapers in the state of Kentucky and dates back more than 200 years.
With a dedicated team of reporters, photographers, editors, ad designers, layout artists, and salespeople, The Greater Ashland Beacon brought home a total of 18 awards in the “General Excellence” category. Here is a breakdown of the awards that our talented staff brought home….
It was a clean sweep for the category of “Best Enterprise/Analytical Story as our Editor Deidra Bowling-Meade, snagged first and second place for her articles on Blazer High School’s Criminal Justice Class and her article on the Harpers and how they embrace each day with change. Coming in for the third-place spot is one of our newest reporters, Gwen Akers for her article on the school transportation in Boyd County. Deidra Bowling-Meade also brough home second place in the category of Best Business/Agribusiness story.
James Collier, our dedicated sportswriter snagged a first award in Best Sports Story for his compelling article about one local teen’s comeback from injury.
The Greater Ashland Beacon also had a clean sweep in the category of Best Sports Picture. Kim Cole-Young, one of our newest photographers, brough home first place for a spectacular baseball photo. Sarah Christian, a long-time Beacon photographer, snagged the second-place spot and Larry Boggs, who has been one of the Beacon’s photographers since its founding, brought home third place in this category.
The category of Best Sports Picture Essay has always been one that our staff has done well in, and this year was no different. Coming in first place was Philip and Lora Stewart for their great coverage of the girls’ basketball state tournament run. Lora Stewart also took the second-place category in this category for her adorable collection of young t-ball players just enjoying a day on the field.
Sasha Bush, our Associate Editor brought home quite a few awards, including first and second place in the Best Use of Social Media/Multimedia category. Second place in the Best Video category went to both Bush for her creative video and Tim Lacey for his amazing photos of local cheer national champions. Bringing home third place in the Best Video category was Lora Stewart and Sasha Bush with their collaboration of coverage for the local little leagues 2023 season. Sasha also brought home a third-place finish in the Best Feature Picture category for her heartwarming photos of a solider embracing his children for the first time in months.
Melissa Hamilton, our very talented Graphic Designer, and staff came in second place in the category of Best Special Section/Sports Special Section for our annual Christmas magazine.
First place for Best Sports Page/Section went to our amazing sports staff for the impressive layout, catchy lede and high-quality photos. Another first place award was seized by the talented Kimberly Smith, our Chief Layout Artist and Lora Stewart for the eye-catching layout and design of our annual Pink Paper that we do each year in honor of breast cancer awareness.
But we aren’t done yet… those awards were just the ones that the Greater Ashland Beacon was awarded for the category of editorial excellence. In addition to taking the first-place excellence award for best weekly one paper in the state we also took second place for advertising… bringing home a total of nine awards!
Melissa Hamilton was the queen of this category as she brought home a total of five awards which includes the following… first place in the categories of Best Real Estate Ad, second place in the category of Best Department/Discount Jewelry Ad as well as second place for Best Food/Alcohol Ad. Melissa Hamilton alongside Philip Stewart and staff also took the first place award for Best Special Section/Magazines for the annual 2022 Christmas magazine. Coming in second in the same category was Sasha Bush, Lora Stewart, and Philip Stewart for the tedious work they did bringing the spring sports magazine to life.
Philip Stewart snagged a first-place award of his own in the category of Best Entertainment/Dining Ad for his eye-catching design of the Creative Cow Ice Cream shop ad. Adding to the collection of first place awards… Sasha Bush also took first place for the category of Best Online Digital Ad. Sasha Bush, Philip Stewart, and Lora Stewart also placed second in the category of Best Cover for their spring sports magazine. Melissa Hamilton and Charlie Billips took the third-place award for the same category.
Shewww…. what a year it has been and none of this would have been made possible without you… our dedicated readers and advertisers! The Greater Ashland Beacon continues to be a shining light for sharing all that is positive in our little community. Thank you for always supporting us and providing us with top notch content to write about and capture. We look forward to what this next year brings and can’t wait to see what we can do at the next Kentucky Press Associations Annual Awards show.
