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Editorial: Newsroom cleans up at annual awards conference

Williams-Grand Canyon News and Navajo-Hopi Observer reporters and editors attend the annual Western News & Info editorial conference Oct. 7 where local news staff won a number of editorial awards.
Photo by Williams-Grand Canyon News.

Williams-Grand Canyon News and Navajo-Hopi Observer reporters and editors attend the annual Western News & Info editorial conference Oct. 7 where local news staff won a number of editorial awards.

Every year the editorial staff of the Williams-Grand Canyon News and Navajo-Hopi Observer heads down to Prescott Valley for the annual Western News & Info editorial conference.

Our paper is part of a newspaper group that includes the Prescott Daily Courier, Kingman Daily Miner, Verde Independent and Lake Havasu News Herald among many others.

It’s a good company. Those are quality papers with excellent reporting.

Part of the conference features an award presentation for writing, photography, page design, headlines etc. The Arizona Daily Star editorial team judges the entries.

This year the Williams-Grand Canyon News and Navajo-Hopi Observer won a combined 15 awards. Our reporter and associate editor for the Navajo-Hopi Observer Katherine Locke took home Best Video, Headline Writing and Excellence in Writing awards.

Williams reporter Wendy Howell took home a stack of awards including Headline Writing, Feature, News and Sports Photography, Sports Writing, Lead Writing, Creativity in Reporting and Excellence in Writing.

Managing editor Loretta Yerian also won awards in Headline Writing, Sports Writing, Lead Writing and took first place in Page Design.

Our new staff member, Erin Owensby joined our team in August and is proving to be a complimentary asset to an already dedicated taam of journalists. We have no doubt she will be taking home awards next year.

As a news team, we’re proud to cover the city of Williams and the town of Grand Canyon in addition to the Navajo Nation and Hopi communities.

In addition to winning awards, our papers have had a number of changes in the last few months, including new staff and new websites.

The websites for each paper is up to date and gives our readers a fresh new look at columns, news sports and feature articles and all other topics of interest.

We are very excited about these upgrades and encourage our readers to visit our new websites at williamsnews.com, grandcanyonnews.com and nhonews.com.

We’re not perfect though and welcome your comments on how we can continue to improve. We value our readers and our partners in the community. We want everybody in these communities to feel represented in our papers.

With that said, if you have a story you would like to see in our pages, let us know. Drop us an email. Here is how: editorial@williamsnews.com.


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