Southeast Missourian wins 10 awards in press contest

The Southeast Missourian won 10 awards in the 2008 Missouri Press Association's Better Newspaper Contest, announced Sept. 13 at the 142nd annual convention in Columbia, Mo.

The Southeast Missourian placed first in four categories.

Among its first place-winning submissions was Toby Carrig's sports story "Fact or Fiction" on the NCAA's investigation of Southeast Missouri State University's women's basketball team. Other first-place winners were Kit Doyle, who was honored for his sports photograph "SCC decks No. 1 Delta," Paul Walker and Greg Dowdy for their ad for Clark Appliance, and the Southeast Missourian staff for its best front-page entry.

The Southeast Missourian's website, semissourian.com, took second place in the best website category. Online products manager Matt Sanders' story, "Missouri's dairy industry in decline," earned second place for best rural life or agriculture story. Rudi Keller placed second in the best business story category for his article "Sharing the area market," a story about the local banking climate. The newspaper's editorial "Into the light of understanding," about a forum between Muslims, Hindus and Christians, also took second in the statewide competition.

Editor Bob Miller and special publications managing editor Callie Clark Miller won third place for their humorous columns, which appear weekly in the Good Times section. The paper also took home a third-place award with its best page design entry "High Achievers" which appeared in the paper's neXt page, geared toward reaching a younger audience.

In addition to the awards, the association also inducted several honorees into the Missouri Newspaper Hall of Fame, one of whom was Wally Lage, vice president of newspapers for Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian. Lage is the fourth Southeast Missourian executive to earn a spot in the Hall of Fame.

As vice president of newspapers for Rust Communications, Lage oversees the operations of community newspapers in a variety of markets. Since 2005 he also has served as president of PAGE Cooperative, a consortium of U.S. newspapers that deals with newspaper vendors.