Top honors in three categories of the Carmage Walls Commentary Prize competition were awarded today to Inez Russell Gomez, opinion page editor of The Santa Fe New Mexican; Bridget Grumet, editorial page editor of the Austin American-Statesman; and Dick Yarbrough, columnist with The Marietta Daily Journal.
Gomez placed first for Focused Editorials. Grumet earned top honors for Political/Social Commentary. Dick Yarbough took top honors for Personal Interest columns.
The awards were presented by Lissa Walls Cribb, CEO of Southern Newspapers, during the Senior Leadership Conference awards luncheon. The awards honor the memory of her father, Benjamin Carmage Walls.
In presenting the awards, she noted that some changes were made in this year's awards competition. “We eliminated the circulation categories and judged entries from all size newspapers together, emphasizing quality and impact over circulation size.
“We also increased the contest prize money and expanded the contest categories to reflect the evolving world of opinion journalism — all designed to celebrate the very best in editorial and column writing — work that informs, challenges and inspires communities.”
She said the competition received more entries this year than in the past, making the competition for this year’s awards tough. She said this year's honorees “should rightly be very proud of the good work they are doing in their communities.”
