by Dennis Dalman
The Newsleaders newspapers were honored recently with two awards from the Minnesota Newspaper Association – one for their editorial/opinion pages and an individual award for photographer Carolyn Bertsch.
A Newsleader graphic designer, Marg Crumley, also won an award in another contest.
The awards were presented by the MNA’s annual “Better Newspaper Contest.”
A story about Bertsch’s win was published in the Feb. 4 Newsleaders. A freelance photographer and assignment editor for the Newsleaders since 2017, Bertsch won first place for a photo of Santa Claus visiting an elderly woman at Edgewood Senior Living, Sartell. Because of the pandemic, Santa was standing outside of the window looking in at the smiling woman, Kay Peterson. Another photo by Bertsch graces the cover of Crumley’s award-winning entry.
Both winners had been entered in the category of non-daily newspapers with a circulation of more than 7,001. The circulation for the Newsleaders (the St. Joseph and Sartell-St. Stephen ones combined) is close to 14,000.
Crumley won the top award for designing the cover of the upcoming MNA’s “2022 Minnesota Newspaper Directory.” The cover features a Carolyn Bertsch photo of the Mississippi River shore just below Veterans Park in Sartell.
The Newsleaders won second place in its category of “Editorial Page as a Whole.” The judges’ citation stated, “Staff (writers) columns made this entry stand out.”
As required by contest rules, three separate editorial/opinion pages were submitted from Newsleaders published in 2021. The pages contained a column and several editorials written by Newsleader Editor Leanne Loy, a column by former editor Heidi L. Everett, one by columnist Connor Kockler and two by Dennis Dalman.
