Dirk Chatelain of the Omaha World-Herald won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2019 contest for projects in the B Division.

He will be presented with his first-place plaque at the 2020 APSE Summer Conference Banquet on June 27 at The Alexander hotel in Indianapolis.

Contest chair Lisa Wilson and fellow APSE officers Todd M. Adams, Gary Potosky and Dan Spears prepared the entries. Sports editors in the B Division entered 18 projects in the category. 

Click here to join and enter the contest for 2020.

In February, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference in St. Petersburg, Fla., and off-site around the country, selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10 separately on a secret ballot. Entries were given 10 points for a first-place vote, 9 points for second and so on down to one point for a 10th-place vote. The final five were given to a second judging group, which ranked the entries 1-10 in the same fashion.

The winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.

The winner in each category will receive a plaque at the summer conference. The second- through fifth-place entries will receive frameable certificates.

Project entries shed new light on personalities and issues in the news, including trends and original ideas. It is pre-planned content that is conceived and executed as a larger body of work. It is not ongoing coverage of a news event over a period of time.

A list of the Top 10:

  1. Dirk Chatelain, Omaha World-Herald 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, 59 points, five first-place votes
  2. Erik Bacharach, Mariah Timms, Tommy Deas, Autumn Allison and Clevis Murray, The Tennessean (Nashville, Tenn.) 1 2 3 4 5, 49 points
  3. Gentry Estes, Courier Journal 1 2 3 4, 39 points, one first-place vote
  4. Guerin Emig, Tulsa World 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, 36 points
  5. Dan Kane, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) 1 2 3 4 5, 33 points
  6. Jenni Carlson and Nathan Ruiz, The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) 1 2 3 4 5 6, 29 points
  7. Brant James, Ryan Butler and Staff, Gambling.com Group 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, 27 points
  8. Nicholas Piotrowicz, Steve Junga, Mark Monroe, Kyle Rowland and Ashley Bastock, The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, 23 points
  9. Eric Kolenich, Richmond Times-Dispatch 1 2 3, 18 points
  10. Ryan Hermens, Lexington Herald-Leader 1 2 3 4 5 6, 17 points

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