With first place finishes in editorial writing, general excellence and sports coverage, the Post-Signal staff again earned a sweepstakes victory in Division 6 Weeklies at the Texas Press Association convention in Denton on Saturday.
The contest evaluated submissions that ran from January through December of 2024 against a group of the newspaper’s peers from across the state, including the Big Bend Sentinel in Marfa, the Tyler County Booster in Woodville and the Burleson County Tribune in Caldwell.
“Our success as a newspaper is dependent upon the communities we serve and the audience that reads our work,” Editor and Publisher Abigail Allen said. “It is an awesome responsibility to report on the Ranch Cities communities and to chronicle the experiences and decisions that happen here.”
Throughout the Post-Signal’s history, it has brought home a state title 11 times.
Allen, who has been part of the staff since 2017, has contributed to five of those sweepstakes awards.
The 2024 Better Newspaper Contest win is the first under the ownership of Allen’s parents, Daniel and Rosemary Thatcher, who purchased the newspaper in January of 2024.
“Winning sweepstakes is always a group effort,” Abigail said. “It takes the work of every staff member and our reliable group of contributors to create consistently good local content for our readers that is recognized by our peers. We do not put together our work for the contests. We pull from what we do week in and week out to demonstrate the quality of newspapers we produce.”
In editorial writing, the Post-Signal submitted two opinion pieces penned by Abigail—'Sunlight remains necessary in local politics” from July 5, 2024, and “Water concerns need to rise to top of priority list” from July 19, 2024.
The judge’s comments about the submissions were, “Fluid writing, conclusion ties back to the introduction, good topic selection.”
General excellence evaluates the paper as a whole, with the full issues from Oct. 11, 2024, and Nov. 15, 2024, submitted for judging.
In addition to staff writer Basil Gist, staff writer Martin Edwards, Advertising Manager Kim Fleming, designer Carrie Rodriguez and Abigail, contributors Chance Kirby, Bill Norwood, Jenna Ager- lid Howard, Tatiana Ambrosio, Janette Pool, Jacob Gonzalez, Julia Allen and Jada Allen helped round out the submitted issues.
The judge’s comments said, “Easy to navigate packaging on the front page and throughout; 4-5 packages on the front page is ideal; good headline font and structure; good use of photos; good ad layout; nice use of local content.”
Edwards, Abigail, Kirby, Norwood, Howard and Gonzalez contributed to the sports coverage win.
“This was a very tight competition,” the judge wrote. “Very consistent white space, crisp layout, consistent application of standards and styles within layout—even when you breakout of grid, good range of coverage for season, good selection of content for range, excellent typography, concise headlines, nice photography. What put you in #1 is Martin Edwards’ writing quality. Seasoned sports commentary, with seasoned writing skills. Continue the excellence!”
That evaluation of Edwards’ work is an even bigger compliment of our work, Abigail said, because Edwards began his sports writing career in March of 2024.
“Martin is one of the best sports reporters I have ever known, and I’m grateful for his dedication to the student-athletes and coaches we cover,” she said.
In addition to the first-place wins, the Post-Signal earned second in feature photography, as well as third in news photography, page design and sports photography.
“The paper had good action shots,” the judge said about the feature photography entries. “Photos are well composed, good color and exposure. Capturing expression on people’s faces tells a story and connects with your audience.”
To see the Winners’ Circle with all the details and comments regarding the statewide contest, visit bit.ly/43ZhWlJ.
