News: Neillsville - Clark County Press (More Awards - 1981)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Slaats

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 6/04/1981

Clark County Press (More Awards - 1981)

The Clark County Press walked away with three state newspapers awards at the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Newspapers Association held late last week in La Crosse.

The newspaper took top awards in the General Excellence category, Feature Writing competition and Editorial Page division.

The awards bring the total to 22 national and state honors received by the newspaper in the last nine years and since Gary and Jane Slaats, present co-publishers, joined the publication.

Judges for the annual contest were publishers from the North Dakota Newspaper Association. There were over 1,100 entries in the competition. In the winning entries for the Press were:

General Excellence—The Judge said, ”The openness of the six-column format is nice to look at. The editorial page is very strong in both opinion and commentary pieces.” (The Press, with third place honors, joined the Star-Countryman of Sun Prairie, which took first; The Community Herald of Monona, second; and the Lodi Enterprise, honorable mention.)

Feature—Entered in the contest was a feature story, “Thief Gets Life In Pen,” written by Gary Slaats, editor. The story concerned the “apprehension” of a stray canine after it had removed women’s undergarments from clotheslines. The judge said, “An enterprising story complete with a ‘mutt shot’ of the villain. Fits category outlines to a ‘T’ with its originality and unusual treatment.” (The Press took a second place in this category. The Ozaukee Press of Port Washington was first with the Tomah Monitor-Herald in third.)

Editorial Page—The judge lauded The Press for “two full pages devoted to editorial-type material” and “interesting column headings.” (The Press got an honorable mention raking and joined the Journal-Republican of Columbus in first, the Lodi Enterprise in second and the Star-Countryman of Sun Prairie in third.