On Friday, Sept. 25, I attended the Hoosier State Press Association’s annual awards luncheon and conference. Since my first year going in 2023, it’s been a helpful, energizing event for me. Gathering with other Indiana journalists to celebrate our craft and contributions to the communities we serve feels more important than ever.
Western Wayne News submits our work for consideration every year to the HSPA awards contest and I’m pleased when any of our entries pick up a first, second or third place recognition. Awards like these don’t tell the whole story, but they help remind us that what we do has a notable place in the broader landscape of high-quality journalism and newspaper production.
This year’s ceremony was wrapping up after the regular judged awards had all been given out, and I’d sent my team a list of our wins on Slack. As the emcees previewed the ceremony’s final special award category, I was starting to pack up my things and admittedly, my attention was turning to the messages and tasks waiting for me back at the office, but I was also curious to know which publications would get HSPA’s Blue Ribbon award this year.
HSPA refers to the award as its “highest accolade” based on “an overall evaluation of the editorial quality of the newspaper. One daily and one non-daily newspaper are honored, regardless of circulation size.”
One year at the HSPA event, I ended up sitting next to the publisher of a publication that ended up winning the award. I was moved by the tears streaming down her face as she looked over the plaque; she had just been telling our table how much her work had been grinding her down, and it was clear the recognition was unusually meaningful, coming at a much-needed moment.
When they announced Western Wayne News as one of the two 2026 Blue Ribbon winners, I was in shock. I got up and accepted the award, and smiled through the kind words of congratulations that folks around me shared, but it took me a few days to process that it was real and what it meant.
It does mean a lot to me. I haven’t calibrated my work as publisher and owner around any particular award milestones, but I’ve focused on making the paper as helpful to the community as it can be, striving for the highest standards of journalism and newspaper production we can possibly reach with our small team along the way.
To have an industry association say out loud in this way that our work stands out as excellent is deeply heartening and wonderful. To hear it in a year when I’ve wrestled with unexpected changes and stress on top of the usual challenges of small business ownership is…so nice!
Mostly, I was very excited to share it with my team and my family. I will take some credit for my leadership in the paper’s editorial accomplishments, but the Western Wayne News is truly a team effort, from our reporters to our copy editor/proofreaders, from our administrative and operations folks to our friends and family members who try to understand and support the time and energy we put in to this weird profession.
I see this award as a celebration of all of that, and all who have come before, and it feels like a special moment in the life of the paper. ❤️🎉
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