PAPER HONORED FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE

The Southeast Missourian has been recognized for its community service efforts by two newspaper organizations, in addition to winning recognition for its election coverage.

For the third time in the last five years, the Cape Girardeau daily newspaper has won the Suburban Newspapers of America Community Service Award in its circulation category.

The award was presented at the organization's 19th annual Editorial Awards Banquet in Chicago earlier this month. At that ceremony, the Missourian also received a third-place award in the Best Election Coverage category.

Also for its community service work, the Missourian was a runner-up for the Inland Daily Press Association 1991 Community Service Award. That award was presented late last month in Chicago.

Both the community service honors were given for the Missourian's Newspaper In Education program, which serves more than 200 teachers and 2,500 students in this area. Through the program, which was initiated in September 1990, newspapers are sent into classrooms each weekday for a wide variety of academic uses.

The Suburban Newspapers award was judged by faculty members in the Department of Communications at the University of Michigan.

In the Chicago presentation, James Buckley, a professor in that department, said the award represents "a commitment to an ongoing community service program. (It) is the most significant award a newspaper can achieve because it is not a one-time thing. It takes long planning and vision."

The Southeast Missourian also won this award in 1987 and 1988.

The Chicago-based newspaper organization, which includes members from suburban areas throughout the United States and Canada, also cited the Missourian's commitment to the local Adopt-A-School program.

The Extra Bilingual Community Newspapers of Chicago won the Inland Daily Press Community Service Award. In finishing as runner-up, the Missourian was recognized for its Newspaper In Education program "while many papers dropped their NIE efforts in recessionary times."

Also earning community service recognition were the Hillsdale (Mich.) Daily News and the Decatur (Ill.) Herald and Review.

The Inland competition was sponsored and judged by the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The third-place Suburban Newspapers award for election coverage resulted from the Missourian's work in reporting on the November 1990 congressional election and the Cape Girardeau park tax issue.