By Robert Gagliardi
APSE Third Vice President
Mike Vorel of the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2016 contest in Feature Writing for the 30,000-75,000 circulation category.
Vorel won for his story on Notre Dame football player Will Mahone. Vorel will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2017 APSE banquet. The banquet and awards dinner will conclude the APSE Summer Conference, which takes place June 26-29 at The Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans.
Sports editors in the 30,000-75,000 category submitted 126 feature entries. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair Jeff Rosen and fellow APSE officers Tommy Deas, John Bednarowski and Robert Gagliardi numbered each entry, assuring they has 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 Lake Buena Vista, 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, nine for second and so 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 winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The features category judges a single story on human interest, reader interest, quality of writing and thoroughness of reporting.
The top 10 is listed below, with links to writers’ Twitter pages, APSE member websites and winning entries.
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