BANGOR, Maine — The Bangor Daily News took home top honors for its website and online advertising and staff members earned 14 other first-place awards Saturday at the Maine Press Association’s Fall Conference and Hall of Fame induction at the Hilton Garden Inn.
The BDN won the digital general excellence award and the newspaper took home second-place honors for general excellence in the daily and weekend categories. Awards were granted for reporting, photography, illustration, advertising and editorials.
The following BDN staff members won first-place honors: Troy Bennett, news photo for Saying Goodbye, and feature photo for Flag Raising; George Danby, illustration for Cellphones at the table; Bridgit Cayer, supplemental cover for Gift Guide; Mario Moretto and Christopher Cousins, news blogger for State and Capit o l; John Holyoke, sports blogger for Out There; Sarah Cottrell, features blogger for Housewife Plus; Nok-Noi Ricker, investigative report for Maine National Guard Suicide Prevention; Bill Trotter, arts and lifestyle feature for artist Ashley Bryan; Sarah Walker Caron, local columnist for her account of the Sandy Hook shooting; Erin Rhoda and Natalie Feulner for special online project about people giving back to stop domestic violence; and Ernie Clark, game story for Oxford Hills tops Bangor.
First-place honors also went to Coralie Dapice for best online ad and the BDN creative team in the category of campaign or series for Broadway TV and best circulation promotional for BDN 99 cents.
Portland Press Herald reporter Scott Dolan was named Journalist of the Year for his reporting on an illegal gag order issued by a judge during an open court proceeding. The Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram won general excellence awards in the daily and weekend categories, respectively.
In a luncheon Saturday, the press association inducted three new members into its Hall of Fame. The inductees were Bill Nemitz, Bob Kalish and Lou Ureneck.
Nemitz started his career at the Morning Sentinel in Waterville and eventually moved to the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram where he pens a well-known column. Managing Editor Steve Greenlee called the column “the conscience of Maine.”
Kalish worked at the Daily Variety in Los Angeles and then worked in television for CBS in Chicago in 1966 and eventually covered the Vietnam War from Thailand for Group W. News Radio. He also covered the closing of Maine Yankee atomic power plant and the closing of Brunswick Naval Air Station for the The Times Record in Brunswick.
Ureneck came to Maine in 1974 where worked as a night crime reporter for the Portland Press Herald, the Evening Express and the Maine Sunday Telegram and eventually rose to serve as executive editor of all three papers in 1989.