Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: The Press Times Entry Title: Rehabilitation animal of the month: Barred owl; Rehabilitation animal of the month: Baby raccoons and red foxes; Rehabilitation animal of the month: Opossum Entry Credit: Freddy Moyano Judge Comment: I love this column. Wonderful idea, nicely executed with enough personality to make it highly pleasurable to read. Maybe we’ll steal this idea.
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: Peninsula Pulse Entry Title: The Problematic Shift from 'We' to 'I'; Cari's Holiday Store; What Door County Can Teach the Country. Entry Credit: Bret Bicoy Judge Comment: I really like the columnist’s style and tone, and the respect for readers it conveys. This is a really good way to address an important but rarely addressed part of civic life.
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: The Lakeland Times Entry Title: Northwoods Film Festival 2022; Freedom from sea to shining sea; Belfast - a fork in the road Entry Credit: Jake Schexnaydre Judge Comment: What can I say? There is every chance that Eric Johnson is getting hosed his work fits the very definition of the category, well-written old school, reader service stuff that any newspaper should be proud to run. But when you’re competing with baby owls and foxes? (One note: I did have to work hard to find the jumps for these pieces.)
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: Peninsula Pulse Entry Title: Wisconsin's Law on Abortion and What Comes Next; Dying with Their Rights On: Mental Health and the Law; Election Lawsuits and Our Democracy. Entry Credit: Joan Korb Judge Comment: Solid, clear writing about important matters. Some really valuable work here.
Competition Comment: This was a surprisingly strong category — I’ve judge similar contests and can say that Wisconsin has a lot of good local columnists compares to, erm, most places. The tradition of having local voices expressing their opinions on local subjects seems very much alive.
That said, there’s very little daylight between the four winners and the unmentioned columns. Not that you could have pulled the winners out of a hat, but there were no clunkers here. That made it a pleasure to judge this category.
