Jacob Shames won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2022 contest in the Division D Breaking News category for his coverage for the Montgomery Advertiser of the arrest of a former member of the Troy University football team on charges of assault against a former teammate.

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.      

Ryne Dennis of the Athens Banner-Herald was second, and Jim Henry of the Tallahassee Democrat was third.  

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

Sports editors in Division D submitted 36 Breaking News entries. 

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. Click here to join.

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. 

The final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.

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

  1. Jacob Shames, Montgomery Advertiser, 43 points (1 first-place vote)
  2. Ryne Dennis, Athens Banner-Herald 39 points, (2 first-place votes)
  3. Jim Henry, Tallahassee Democrat, 37 points
  4. Dennis Knight, Savannah Morning News, 35 points
  5. (tie) Nick Kelly, The Tuscaloosa News, 34 points (1 first-place vote)

5. (tie) Gerald Thomas III, Tallahassee Democrat, 34 points (1 first-place vote)

7. Bennett Durando, The Montgomery Advertiser, 33 points

8. Kevin Brockway, Gainesville Sun, 28 points (1 first-place vote)

9. Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 27 points

10. McClain Baxley, Athens Banner-Herald, 20 points