Stockbridge Community News staff receives several awards in communications contest

by Hope Salyer

For the eighth consecutive year, the Stockbridge Community News team won awards issued by the National Federation of Press Women in its at-large competition. The 2025 NFPW Professional Communications Contest recognized work published in 2024, drawing in a record number of high-quality entries from across the nation. Among the winners were five members of the SCN staff.

Judy Brune, Mary Jo David, Agnes Geiger, Joan Tucker and Judy Williams received a combined total of seven awards in the 2025 contest. 

Brune, David, and Geiger received a first-place award in the at-large competition for their combined work in the Editing For Print or Online category. Judges commented on SCN’s very “newsy” newspaper, noting it was filled with a variety of information that should appeal to its readers.

“An excellent community publication—keep up the excellent work for your readers,” the judge wrote in their feedback.

Because of its first-place win in the at-large contest, Brune, David and Geiger’s editing entry will go on to compete for first-place in the national competition.

See SCN awards on page 6.

Making it to the national contest is no easy feat. Only entries that receive a first-place award in a state or at-large contest are considered for national honors. What makes it even tougher is that Michigan writers’ entries are judged in the at-large category, which combines entries from about 19 other states and Washington, D.C.

David, Tucker and Williams also received a second-place finish in the at-large contest in the Writing Specialty Articles Travel category for their article “‘Senior moments’ take on new meaning when traveling,” published in SCN’s November 2024 edition. Judges commented on the advice given by each writer, especially noting the reminder for young readers to enjoy traveling while they can.

Williams received an additional second-place finish for her November 2024 feature titled, “Celebrating Men of the Hour: Donald Porter opened doors to education.”

“This is a nice story about an individual who has had an outsized impact on his community,” the judge wrote. “The writer makes good use of quotes to bolster the wealth of details she gathered about her subject and successfully creates a vivid picture for her readers. Well done.”

Along with her combined at-large awards, David received two second-place finishes, one third-place finish, and an honorable mention in the at-large contest. Two of her Woah Nellie columns, “Stand back, Dad’s bringing in his ‘Kielbasa and Sauerkraut’!” and “Nellie’s ‘Pound Cake’—weighing in at 1 pound 9 ounces—is a keeper,” each won a second-place award in the Writing for a Humorous Column and Writing a Specialty Food Article categories respectively.

Judges praised David for her excellent food article, writing “It’s a fun exploration of the past, and also a step-by-step explanation of a recipe and cooking process, so that even a beginning cook would be comfortable trying it.”

David’s success continued with a third-place finish in the personal opinion writing category with her “‘Verbena’ gets five stars –as a mom, a woman, and a novel” piece, and an honorable mention in the reviews category for her article “Erma Bombeck paved the way for these Gen-X humor writers.”

Congratulations—AGAIN—to the SCN award winners! Thank you for keeping SCN’s many-year streak alive at the NFPW National Awards.