Dirk Chatelain of the Omaha World-Herald won first place in the 2022 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division B Explanatory Writing category for his article on the growth of girls wrestling in Nebraska.

APSE contest winners will be honored at the 2023 APSE Summer Conference banquet at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas on July 12. Click here to register for the conference, which begins on July 9 and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of APSE. 

Tim O’Shei and Jason Wolf of The Buffalo News were second and Jesse Newell of The Kansas City Star took third.      

Chatelain will receive a plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.                                                                                               

Sports editors in Division B submitted 53 entries in Explanatory. 

Contest chair Naila-Jean Meyers and fellow APSE officers Jorge Rojas, Dan Spears and Ed Reed prepared the entries. The contest is open to APSE members. 

Contest results: Sections, digital, video | Writing and photography

In February, judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., and remote judges around the country selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10. Entries were given 10 points for a first-place vote, nine points for second and so on down to one point for a 10th-place vote. The final 10 were given to a second judging group, which ranked the entries 1-10 in the same fashion. 

Explanatory stories include reporting on trends, issues, and original ideas that sheds new light on issues and personalities in the news. They go beyond the “yesterday” of the breaking news story.

The top 10 is listed below with voting results and links to the winning entries.

  1. Dirk Chatelain, Omaha World-Herald, 48 points
  2. Tim O’Shei and Jason Wolf, The Buffalo News, 43 points (1 first-place vote)
  3. Jesse Newell, The Kansas City Star, 40 points (2 first-place votes)
  4. Langston Wertz Jr., The Charlotte Observer, 38 points (1 first-place vote)
  5. (tie) Julie Jag, The Salt Lake Tribune, 37 points (2 first-place votes)

5. (tie)Mark Story, Lexington Herald-Leader, 37 points

7. (tie) Mark Anderson, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 24 points

7. (tie) Nathan Ruiz, The Baltimore Sun, 24 points

9. Rachel Lenzi, The Buffalo News, 22 points

10. Chip Alexander, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 17 points

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