Kitty Bottemiller won third place for Best Feature Photo with this shot of Green Valley Fire Chief Chuck Wunder’s promotion last year.

Kitty Bottemiller won third place for Best Feature Photo with this shot of Green Valley Fire Chief Chuck Wunder’s promotion last year.

The Green Valley News and Sahuarita Sun won 23 awards in the 2015 Better Newspapers Contest and Advertising Excellence awards at the Arizona Newspaper Association conventionSaturday night in Chandler.

“Our primary goal of providing the best local news and information coverage for Green Valley and Sahuarita receives recognition from the communities constantly, but it’s so rewarding to also be recognized by our peers,” Publisher Rebecca Bradner said. “A big thank you to all our residents for providing us great stories to share.”

Advertising

  • The Green Valley News advertising department won first place in General Excellence (tied with Payson Roundup) in its circulation category on its way to winning several other awards:
  • First place: Best Newspaper Promotion Ad, Series or Section, “Circulation Golf Car Promotion.”
  • First place: Best Color Ad, “Mirage and bird.”
  • First place: Best Paid Ad Series, Color, “Green Valley Mortuary.”
  • Second place: Best black and white ad, “Community Food Bank.”
  • Second place: Best Classified Section.
  • Third place: Best Paid Ad Series, B&W, “Valle Verde vets series.”
  • Third place: Most Effective Use of Small Space, “Watch and Clock Repairs.”
  • Third place: Best Online Ad, Dynamic, “Bill’s Home Service.”
  • Third place: Best Pro Bono/Public Service Ad, “Memorial Day.”

Newsroom

The Green Valley News/Sahuarita Sun newsroom won second place for General Excellence in its circulation category along with several other awards:

  • First place: Reporting & News Writing Excellence.
  • First place: Design Excellence.
  • First place: Best Sports Story, “One for the books,” Dan Shearer, about a Green Valley man’s golden season with his 1962-63 high school basketball team.
  • First place: Best Feature Story, “She was my daughter,” Dan Shearer, about the mother of Georgann Hawkins, who died at the hands of serial killer Ted Bundy.
  • First place: Best Column, Analysis or Commentary, “Who shot Andrew Paxton,” Dan Shearer, about a questionable Tucson police investigation of a near-fatal shooting.
  • Second place: Editorial Page Excellence.
  • Second place: Best Sports Story, “Still going,” Christopher Boan, about an injured veteran running triathlons.
  • Second place: Best Column, Analysis or Commentary, “Town must ask more questions,” Dan Shearer, about Sahuarita’s failure to properly vet a police chief candidate.
  • Third place: Best Column, Analysis or Commentary, “Bronson’s apology sounds more like an insult,” Dan Shearer, about Supervisor Sharon Bronson’s odd explanation of why she abruptly gaveled a meeting to a close, blocking public comment.
  • Third place: Best Feature Photo, “GVFD’s New Chief,” Kitty Bottemiller
  • Third place: Best Sports Story, “In his corner,” Dan Shearer, about the Green Valley man who trained boxer Buster Douglas in his win over Mike Tyson 25 years ago.
  • Third place: Best Sustained Coverage or Series, “Border Patrol agent kills man in GV,” Philip Franchine and Dan Shearer.

This year, 54 newspapers and eight high schools entered the Better Newspapers Contest for a total of 1,633 entries; 35 newspapers entered the Excellence in Advertising competition for a total of 549 entries. Contest entries were judged by the Nebraska Press Association.