Generally excellent

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Some good news for once!

We did really well in the Nevada Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper and Magazine Contest. I’m especially happy to see that Dennis Myers got some posthumous recognition, and I’m proud of Matt Bieker’s all-star performance in his rookie year.

In our category, Urban Weeklies, Dennis won first place for News Feature Story. That was for “The secret history of Reno,” his thorough telling of the story of the city, including its history of hate crimes. He also won second place for Investigative Story and second place for Business Feature.

Matt won first place for Explanatory Journalism, second place for Local Column, and third place for Business Feature.

He’s also one of the names on our first-place plaque for Page One Design, alongside our designers Maria Ratinova and Sarah Hansel, and last year’s Best of Northern Nevada artist, Jaxon Northon.

Our critics did well: Movie reviewer Bob Grimm won first place for Critical Writing, and our theater critic, Jessica Santina, took second place. Arts writer extraordinaire Kris Vagner won second place for Feature Writing for her story “Walled in.”

As did our columnists: Sheila Leslie won first place for Local Non-staff Column, while Bruce Van Dyke took third in the same category. Meanwhile, I took third place for Local Column.

The folks on the advertising side did well, too. Designer Cathy Arnold won second place for In-House Advertising Promotion, and the advertising team won first place for Special Section or Campaign for the Kids News & Review.

And the paper won some overall awards: Third place for Overall Design, and we won the big one: first place in General Excellence.

I’m really proud of the efforts of everyone on the team. It’s been a tough year for many of us personally, and we’ve kicked butt despite the setbacks. Big congrats, fam!