Daily Herald writers, photographers recognized by AP
Daily Herald reporters and photographers won six first-place honors and 14 total awards Thursday during the 2007 Illinois Associated Press Editors Association Editorial Excellence contest in Springfield.
Veteran sports columnist Barry Rozner won first-place honors for three columns, including his "Memories of '85 a delightful blur" piece looking back at the colorful Super Bowl champion Bears, and a column comparing Tiger Woods to Michael Jordan, written while Rozner was covering the PGA tour at Medinah Country Club.
Staff writer Joseph Ryan won a first-place award for his sports feature story "Tragedy amid controversy -- The story of the last horse to die at Arlington Park." Ryan's story focused on a horse that had to be euthanized when it was injured on the track, which has since been replaced.
Staff photographer Mark Black won a first-place award in the feature category for his photo titled "Little Dog," which showed a dog named Muppet sitting in a small wagon pulled by a large antique tractor during the 2006 Schaumburg Septemberfest parade.
A photo called "Finding Family" won top honors in the picture story category for staff photographer Bev Horne. Her photograph showed parents Andy and Jenny DeTolve with their adopted daughter Madison.
Staff photographer Dan White won first place in the sports features category for "Inbounds Pressure," which featured a Barrington High School girls basketball player looking to make an inbound pass despite the distraction of screaming Palatine High School fans behind her.
Senior photographer Bill Zars took first-place honors in the illustration category for "Bird Flu Scare," which characterized the spread of avian flu being kept at bay by a scarecrow.
Business writer Mike Comerford and film critic and entertainment writer Dann Gire won second-place awards in their fields.
Comerford was honored for a series that explained how American-style fast food such as McDonald's and KFC was spreading in China.
Film Critic Dann Gire was honored for his "Who ya gonna call?" story about area ghost hunters.
Staff photographers Steve Lundy and Paul Valade won second-place awards.
Lundy's photo series titled "Extreme Fighter" portrayed an XTreme Fighting match and won honors in the picture story category.
Valade's "Flash Across the Sky" shot of an impressive lightning bolt above the Byron Colby Barn in Grayslake was honored in the pictorial category.
Daily Herald writers Tara Malone, John Dietz and Emily Krone received third-place awards.
Dietz was honored for his three-part sports feature series "From Glory Days to the Meltdown," which chronicled the decline of the Chicago Blackhawks.
Krone's "Blindfolds and Blind Faith," about Juan Villa and his family's kidnapping from their family-owned business in Round Lake Beach, was recognized in the non-deadline news category.
Malone was recognized for enterprise reporting with her two-part series "Without a Home," which looked at homeless teens in the suburbs and their efforts to stay in high school.
Staff photographer Rick West won a third-place award in sports features for his photo "Hard Loss," which showed Brian Urlacher leaving Dolphin Stadium after the Bears lost the Super Bowl.
The Daily Herald competed in the large-circulation category. The awards were. presented at a banquet at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.