By John Bednarowski
APSE First Vice President
Daryn Slover of the Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine) won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2017 contest in the Short Video category for the Under 30,000 circulation division.
Slover won for his video on Lewiston High School hockey team captain Jeromey Rancourt and the passing of his father. The winner in each category will receive a plaque at the 2018 APSE Summer Conference in Nashville. The banquet and awards dinner will conclude the APSE Summer Conference, which takes place June 17-20 at at the Marriott Hotel Nashville / Vanderbilt University.
Slover beat out runners-up Bret McCormick and Joe Koon of the The Herald (Rock Hill, SC) . Autumn Allison and Colton Pouncy of the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle placed third.
Sports editors in the Under 30,000 category submitted 22 Short Video entries. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair John Bednarowski and fellow APSE officers Jeff Rosen, Todd Adams and Robert Gagliardi numbered each entry, assuring they had been stripped of headlines, graphics, bylines and any other element that would identify the writer or news organization.
In February, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference in St. Petersburg, Fla., and off-site around the country, selected a top five, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 5 separately on a secret ballot. Entries were given 5 points for a first-place vote, 4 points for second and so on down to one point for a fifth-place vote. The final five were given to a second judging group, which ranked the entries 1-5 in the same fashion. The winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The Short Video category is for videos up to 5 minutes, with entries judged, foremost, on the strength of storytelling. Visual and auditory quality are also considered.
The top 5 is listed below, with links to writers’ Twitter pages, APSE member websites and winning entries.
- Daryn Slover, Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine) 29 points (Five first-place votes)
“Jeromey Rancourt – A quiet leader”
- Bret McCormick and Joe Koon, The Herald (Rock Hill, SC) 22 points
A kicking competition against South Pointe’s future Clemson Tiger, B.T. Potter
- Autumn Allison and Colton Pouncy, Clarksville Leaf Chronicle 19 points (One first-place vote)
Austin Peay, Healy finally reach dream of first win
- Scott Chancey, Morning News 12 points
An emotional signing day for West Florence’s Haynes
- Jason Munz, Hattiesburg American 8 points
