Staffers win regional recognition

Staff members from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette won top honors in 10 categories of the Great Plains Journalism Awards on Friday.

Another 28 staff members were named as finalists. The winners and finalists were announced in a live online event on the Tulsa Press Club Facebook page.

The regional journalism competition draws entries from eight states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota — and is sponsored by the Tulsa Press Club.

The Democrat-Gazette website, arkansasonline.com, won Great Plains Website of the Year.

Photographer Thomas Metthe took top photographic honors to be named Great Plains Photographer of the Year. He also won for sports feature photo, spot news photo and general news photography.

Other top awards were given to Sandra Tyler for her headline portfolio and Stan Denman for feature page design.

Ginny Monk, Carrie Hill and former employee Yutao Chen won the online project category with the Children in Peril series on child deaths from suicide and guns.

Walter Hussman and David Barham won for editorial portfolio, and John Deering took the top spot with his editorial cartoons.

Twenty eight other staff members were named as finalists in other categories.

The combined staffs of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Northwest Democrat-Gazette were finalists for the Covid Classroom series of stories about how the pandemic affected public education in the state.

This year marks a first for the Tulsa Press Club, which inducted its inaugural class of inductees to the Great Plains Journalism Hall of Fame. The 2021 inductees include Brenda Blagg of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.