Aroostook County’s weekly newspapers and the Bangor Daily News organization earned nearly 80 awards from the Maine Press Association on Saturday.
The 2024 Better Newspaper Contest honors were handed out at the association’s annual conference in Bar Harbor.
The BDN was named Maine’s best daily newspaper. The Star-Herald of Presque Isle won first place in its division for general excellence, the top weekly news recognition.
Journalists and staff from the St. John Valley Times, Aroostook Republican, Star-Herald and Houlton Pioneer times won 43 individual awards in writing, photography and design, including 15 first-place nods. Dover-Foxcroft’s Piscataquis Observer won six and the BDN won 26, including two first-place prizes each.
“These awards are a testament to the dedication of our talented staff who work long hours to serve readers across a large area of Maine,” said Mike Dowd, editor of the weeklies. “From reporters and editors to page designers and advertising representatives, they have earned this recognition.”
Starting in Houlton and going north, here’s a recap of The County’s work.
Houlton Pioneer Times writer Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli captured first place for her investigative story on neo-Nazi Christopher Polhaus and his plans, which he later abandoned, to set up training in Maine.
She also won top honors for stories on domestic violence homicide, effects of toxins on military reservists who served at Gagetown, New Brunswick, and the art of Mi’kmaq basket maker Richard Silliboy.
Tomaselli also earned four third-place and five second-place nods in various writing categories. Her photographs of a fire at a building at Houlton International Airport and of a local bachelor posing with a cat for a Houlton Humane Society calendar each took third place.
Star-Herald writer Paula Brewer won first place for health reporting on the then-unfinished Veterans Outpatient Clinic in Presque Isle, which was delayed for more than two years, leaving local veterans struggling for care.
She also captured first-place wins for stories on the Mi’kmaq Nation acquiring Maine’s first naloxone vending machine north of Portland and electric bicycles growing in popularity in The County, as well as a photo series on Limestone’s Renaissance Faire.
Brewer earned a second-place and three third-place nods for news stories and a second-place prize for a photograph of a Presque Isle High School student in a pensive moment at graduation.
Staff including paginator Yvonne Tardie won two first-place honors and a third-place nod for page design.
At the Aroostook Republican in Caribou, writer Melissa Lizotte took a first-place prize for her story on the child care crisis in The County and how parents could lose their jobs without a place for their children.
She won first place for stories on how businesses were affected by last winter’s short snowmobile season and a profile on retiring coach Stephen Perreault, and for her photo of a Civil Air Patrol cadet saluting a veteran’s grave.
Lizotte also earned two second-place and two third-place awards for news writing.
Chris Bouchard of the St. John Valley Times and Mike Dowd, Aroostook’s senior editor, captured first place for their story of a pickup truck, and the tractor that came to rescue it, breaking through the ice on Long Lake.
Bouchard earned three second-place honors for news stories, including the reopening of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Madawaska two months after the church was vandalized, and also won two third-place writing awards.
Outdoors columnist Bill Graves earned second- and third-place recognition for his Mainely Outdoors column.
The Maine press group partners with a different state’s organization every year to judge each other’s contest entries. This year Maine worked with the Nebraska Press Association.
