The PineBelt NEWS captured 29 awards – including General Excellence in its circulation division – at the annual convention of the Mississippi Press Association in Biloxi on Saturday.
The newspaper has received the General Excellence designation for the last seven years.
A publication of Hub City SPOKES in Hattiesburg, The PineBelt NEWS won 11 first-place awards in its circulation division for Best Design, Best Sports Section, Best Editorial Page, Best News Package, Best Feature Photo, Best Feature Story, Best Special Section, Best Personal Column, Best Editorial Writing, Best Magazine, and Best Pictorial Series.
Publisher David Gustafson, Managing Editor Beth Bunch, Sports Editor Camal Petro, Staff Writer Haskel Burns (as well as former staffers Buster Wolfe and John Scarpa) were credit for the first place honors as well as the entire HubCitySPOKES staff including Shannon Fielder, Natasha McLeod, Dave Brandon, Allison LoCicero, Yvette Barncastle, Jamie Massengale, Myranda LaVigne, Rick Jarman, and Jared Smith.
Second-place awards were given Signature Magazine, Lifestyles Page/Section, Front Page, Personality Portrait (Lee Cave), Pictorial Series (Beth Bunch), Feature Photograph (Bunch), Sports Column (Camal Petro), and Planned Series (Haskel Burns). The newspaper also earned a second for Community Service Award for its efforts into establishing The Jook on the grounds of the future Hattiesburg Arts Center.
Personality Portrait (Courtney Tesh), Best News Package (Bunch), Pictorial Series (Matt Bush), Feature Photograph (Nan Knight), Sports Feature Photograph (Bush), Magazine Story (Bunch), Magazine Periodical and Special Section captured third-place awards.
Publisher David Gustafson extended hi congratulations to those throughout the community who contribute to the publication.
“It takes an awful lot of really talented people to publish such quality products and we couldn't do it without our extended team of regular contributors, including David Tisdale, Clark Hicks, Robert St John, Elijah Jones, Benny Hornsby, Phil DiFatta, Rick Cleveland, Wes Brooks, Keith Ball, Joshua Wilson, Alan Hinton, Andrew Abadie, Mik Davis, Carly Hazlip, Alexander Ignatiev, Tim Bynum, Ricky Nobile, Jack Linton, Bill McCloud, Rob Walker, Keith J. Kujath, Lee Cave, Jesse Johnson, Tim Orsi, and others,” he said.
The 2018 Better Newspaper Contest was judged by volunteers from the Kansas Press Association. Forty-three newspapers submitted a total of 1,937 entries into this year’s editorial contest.
“I am beyond proud of the entire staff,” said publisher David Gustafson. “I’m honored to work alongside these folks. The staff at HubCitySPOKES puts in many, many hours of hard work and dedication to bring the best community news, sports, and opinion to the Pine Belt. I look forward to seeing what else we can do together. We're all very, very proud to be serving our readers in Forrest and Lamar counties.”
