The Bainbridge Island Review earned 22 awards for outstanding news and advertising in the 2017 Better Newspaper Contest, presented by the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association.
The honors included awards for the newspaper’s photography, crime and courts coverage, sportswriting, news writing, arts coverage, business features and page design, as well as advertising.
The competition included more than 1,600 entries from 59 Washington newspapers and was judged by the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. The Review was judged on work published from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017.
The newspaper won 15 awards for editorial coverage, and seven advertising awards.
In all, the Review brought home seven first-place awards.
The island’s longtime weekly was also honored as one of Washington state’s best newspapers for its size. The Review earned second place in the General Excellence competition.
The Bainbridge Review also took second place for in two of the contest’s most coveted prizes: “Feature Writer of the Year” and “Ad of the Year.”
Jessica Shelton was honored with second place for her feature writing; a first time the Review has posted a top finisher. (The top award going to Bob Smith, editor of the Review’s sister paper, the Port Orchard Independent.)
The Review won second place in the Ad of the Year category, for Ace Hardware’s “Spring is Here” promotion by Vanessa Calverley and Marleen Martinez.
Calverley and Martinez also won another second place award for their “Customer Appreciation Day” ad for Ace Hardware.
The pair also won five other awards in advertising for the Review:
First place in Best Single Ad for Single Advertiser — John L. Scott Eileen Black;
First place, Half Page Color – “Beyond the Report Card”;
Second place, Smaller than Half Page Color – Peacock Family Services
Second place, Best Branding Ad; and
Third place, Full Page Color Ad — Happy Thanksgiving promotion.
In the news category, Shelton won second place for best short news story for the article about Lukas Anderson of Bainbridge Island, a winner in a nationwide recipe contest designed by First Lady Michelle Obama.
Shelton also placed second in the Best Business Feature Story for the story, “Tuesdays with Melinda.”
She also won third place in long-form feature writing for her story, “Good Grief.”
Nick Twietmeyer won second place for Best Health or Medical Story for his coverage of health concerns about rubber-infused field turf.
Luciano Marano was presented with a third-place award in the Best Story on the Arts category for “Drawn From History,” a story of a graphic novel about six Nisei soldiers.
Brian Kelly won second place for crime and court reporting for his coverage of the gun scare at Bainbridge High.
Kelly also won first and second place in Best Feature Page Design.
He also was awarded the first-place prize for Best Sports News Story, for his coverage of the state champion Spartan boys swimming and diving team.
Marano also added to the honors in sportswriting for the Review, winning the Best Sports Personality Profile category with his story about BHS athletic trainer Amanda Sageser.
In photography, Marano and Kelly both brought home first-place awards.
Marano won first place in the color sports action category, while Kelly received top honors for color portraits.
Kelly also won a third-place award in black-and-white sports photography.
All told, the Kitsap News Group — which includes the Bainbridge Review, the Port Orchard Independent, Central Kitsap Reporter (and the Bremerton Patriot, which was folded into the CKR earlier this year), and the North Kitsap Herald won 74 awards, including three community service awards and three general excellence awards.
“I continue to be extremely pleased with our outstanding team of news and marketing professionals,” said Kitsap News Group Publisher Terry R. Ward.
“It’s great to see them recognized for their excellent work serving our communities,” he said.
