The Star wins awards in Missouri Press Association contest
For the 21st time in 22 years, The Kansas City Star was a top finisher in the Missouri Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.
The Star was named the Gold Cup newspaper for large daily newspapers.
The newspaper won 15 first-place awards in the contest.
The awards were presented Saturday at the Missouri Press Association’s convention in Columbia.
In addition, photographer Jill Toyoshiba won third place in the newspaper sports photography category of the National Headliner Awards. Her photo, titled “Moustakas Catch,” showed Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas making an outstanding catch while leaning over a railing in last year’s postseason.
The same photo won first place in sports photos in the Missouri Press Association contest.
The Star won first-place awards in the Missouri contest for front pages, sports pages, overall design, coverage of rural life or agriculture, and a newspaper in education project.
Other Star first-place winners: David Eulitt for sports feature photo; Laura Bauer for community service for the Feeding KC Kids project; Keith Myers for feature photo; Mark Morris and Glenn E. Rice for investigative reporting; Neil Nakahodo for information graphic; Donald Bradley for story about the outdoors and also for story about rural life or agriculture; Mike Hendricks for history story; Barbara Hill-Meyer for page design.
Second-place awards: staff for general excellence; John Sleezer for sports photo; Eulitt for feature photo; staff for photo package; Sherry Kuehl for humorous columnist; Sam Mellinger, Andy McCullough, Blair Kerkhoff and Megan K. Armstrong for sports news story or package; Rick Montgomery for news story; Mellinger for sports columnist; Brian Burnes for history story; staff for newspaper in education project; Allie Hinga for military story; Nakahodo for page design.
Third-place awards: Tammy Ljungblad for photo package; Rustin Dodd for sports feature story; Hendricks for business story; Eric Adler for news story; Brad Cooper for government coverage; Dave Helling, Bauer, Burnes and Judy L. Thomas for breaking news; Myers for photo illustration.
Honorable mentions: Sleezer for sports feature photo; Allison Long for news photo; McCullough and Dave Eames for information graphic; Thomas for religion story; staff for editorial; Helling for serious columnist; Adler for outdoors story; Tony Rizzo for military story; staff for business coverage.
The Star
This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 2:41 PM.