The Alabama Baptist continues to hold its spot among the best regional Christian newspapers in the nation.
For the 14th consecutive year, the state Baptist newspaper has garnered the top award among Christian newspapers from at least one of the four national religious press organizations of which it is a member.
For its work in 2009, The Alabama Baptist staff won an award of excellence for best overall regional newspaper from the Religion Communicators Council (RCC) and a best in class award of merit from the Associated Church Press (ACP).
For specific issues of the paper related to design and content, the staff won an award of excellence from RCC for the March 5, 2009, issue; an honorable mention from ACP for the July 16, 2009, issue; and an honorable mention from ACP for the July 23, 2009, front page.
The staff also brought home several individual awards in writing, photography and audio-visual categories.
Topping the list of writing awards was the electronic bingo gambling coverage by Jennifer Davis Rash and Sondra Washington. Rash and Washington earned an award of excellence for their coverage from ACP, a first place award from the Baptist Communicators Association (BCA) and a second place award from Evangelical Press Association (EPA).
Rash also won an award of merit from RCC for the coverage, and Washington won a first place award from Alabama Media Professionals (AMP).
In addition, Bob Terry won a third place award from EPA for his electronic bingo gambling editorial “Can History Repeat Itself?” Terry also won fourth place in the EPA cause of the year category with his editorial on modern-day Chernobyl following its 1986 nuclear disaster, “Brinksmanship with Nature.”
Terry, Rash and Debbie Campbell worked with Doug Rogers of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) on a video commercial production for Read The Alabama Baptist Sunday that brought home a first place award from BCA.
Grace Thornton earned an award of merit from RCC for her feature story “New kind of shepherd” and a second place award from BCA for her news story “Moundville’s Pleasant Hill Church goes up in flames day after being robbed.” Thornton also won an award of merit in photography from RCC for “Making it through,” a photo of a Birmingham-area homeless man.
Brittany N. Howerton’s feature story “It all started with a dream” garnered an award of merit from both ACP and RCC. And her photography series “‘Changing a life’” won an award of merit from RCC.
Washington also earned a first place award from AMP for her House of God coverage. And John Godbey won a fourth place award from EPA for his photo of a retiring church organist.
Rogers and others from the SBOM also garnered individual awards for their work in 2009.
Rogers won four individual awards from BCA. He took first place for the video news story “We are home” and second place in the sermon illustration or worship video category for “In memoriam.” He also earned first place awards for the script of “Thank you!” and for ad copywriting for “On that day, I became a Southern Baptist.”
Chris Mills of the SBOM won a BCA first place award for the SBOM’s Facebook fan page, and Jesse Conte of the SBOM won a BCA second place award for “Camping out in God’s Word” in the specialty items category.
Samford University’s office of communications also received a number of regional and national awards under the leadership of Philip Poole, executive director of university communication at Samford.
The office won nine awards from RCC, four awards from BCA and two honors in the District III awards competition sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. The recognitions were for Samford’s Seasons magazine as well as other print materials and web design.
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