Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: Cloquet - Pine Knot News Entry Title: Pine Knot News Entry Credit: Jana Peterson, Mike Creger, Rose Chu, Kerry Rodd, Ivan Hohnstadt Judge Comment: The Pine Knot News sets a high bar for what community newspapers should aspire to: covering a broad spectrum of hard news, features, sports and hyper-local stories that inform, entertain and inspire. The News understands that better than most.
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: Mountain Lake - Observer/Advocate Entry Title: General Excellence Entry Credit: Observer/Advocate Staff Judge Comment: By far the best-designed newspaper in this category, the Observer/Advocate packages its report crisply. Photo display is eye-catching, and centerpiece treatments do a good job of showing off the week's trophy coverage.
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: Eden Valley Watkins Voice Entry Title: EV-W VOICE Entry Credit: EVW VOICE Judge Comment: Nice features on a child with leukemia; restoration of a longtime town tavern; and a family's success at the World Dairy expo made for enjoyable reading in editions with a breadth of coverage. Bonus: Readers also learned all about the World Plowing Competition.
Competition Comment: Minnesota's rural areas are well-served by the small weekly newspapers that work hard to cover their communities. All of the General Excellence entries had one key thing in common: Devotion to their communities and tireless efforts to cover them. Bravo to you all.
