Clarendon, Clovis top PPA contest
The Clarendon Enterprise and the Clovis News-Journal were named the General Excellence winners of the PPA Better Newspaper Contest on Saturday, April 6, 2013.
Contest winners were announced during the 103rd annual PPA convention in Amarillo. Clarendon and the Moore County News*Press also each received $250 for winning the Ken Towery Community Service Award.
Complete contest results are available here:
Featured speakers at this year’s convention were US Rep. Mac Thornberry and Tumbleweed Smith. Sessions were conducted all day Friday, April 5, by Tim Harrower on “Futurizing Your Newspaper” and building up the tools needed to be a journalist in the digital age, and Griff Singer and an expert panel gave tips Saturday morning for “Dealing with Disasters.”
Former PPA president and longtime area journalist John Brooks of Castro County and Amarillo Globe-News columnist and longtime sports writer and editor Jon Mark Beilue were inducted into the PPA Hall of Fame.
Former PPA president and longtime area journalist John Brooks of Castro County and Amarillo Globe-News columnist and longtime sports writer and editor Jon Mark Beilue were inducted into the PPA Hall of Fame.
John Brooks’ résumé includes working at the Castro County News from 1967 to 1973, then from 1984 to 1987 and again from 1993 to 1997. He worked at the HSU Brand at Hardin-Simmons University from 1973 to 1974 and the Hereford Brand from 1987 to 1993 and rejoined the Here-ford Brand staff in 2012. He was an active member of Panhandle Press Association from 1984 to 1997. He served on the board of the association from 1987 to 1993, including a term as President from 1992 to Jan. 10, 1993. Brooks has received many awards through the years, including a Personal School Bell Award in 1991 from the Texas State Teachers Association for education coverage in Hereford. He has received dozens of individual and staff awards from PPA and Texas Press Association. Brooks left the Hereford Brand in January 2012 due to health reason, but he continues to write a weekly column.
Beilue has covered the Texas Panhandle in two major roles at the Amarillo Globe-News, first as sports editor and now as a popular, general columnist. Beilue grew up in Groom and graduated from Texas Tech University. While sports editor of The University Daily at Tech in the 1970s, he covered Southwest Conference athletics and interviewed such sports figures as basketball legend Bob Knight. At the Globe-News, Beilue worked as a sportswriter and assistant sports editor before serving as sports editor for 17 years. He also can be heard as a color man on area high school football radio broadcasts. Since 2006, he has written columns and news on issues, trends, and people on the front page and elsewhere in the newspaper, touching readers across the region with heartfelt observations and descriptions. He is a modern newspaperman whose breadth of knowledge also provides a link to the area’s past.
The PPA was led this year by Canyon’s Amanda Rogers. She will continue on the PPA Board as Immediate Past President with the following officers: Wanda Brooks of Dumas, President; Jeff Blackmon of Shamrock, Vice President; and Roger Estlack of Clarendon, Secretary/Treasurer, along with directors Ashlee Estlack of Clarendon, Debra Wells of Borger, ReDonn Woods of Pampa, Larry Thornton of Muleshoe, and Wayne Hodgin of Post.
