The Danville Register & Bee captured four awards Saturday night from the Virginia Press Association.
The sports department won two third-place awards — one for the general makeup of pages and one for special sections or editions.
Staff writers Sarah Arkin and Denice Thibodeau won a third-place award for breaking news writing for their May 9, 2008, story “History Burns” about the fire that demolished the Dan River Inc. Long Mill complex on May 8.
The story wove together eyewitness accounts of the blaze with interviews of people who had worked in the buildings, fire officials, government officials and a historical preservationist in a bitter fight to save the complex before the blaze.
A timeline of the complex traced its history and the struggle to find some way to preserve the historic buildings.
Sports writers Jason Wolf, Damien Sordelett, Matt Fuchs and Drew Wilson won a third-place award for their pages on Feb. 17, March 30 and June 7 of last year.
The pages included the coverage of Gretna High School’s shutout of James River and Tunstall High School’s shutout of Poquoson in the 2008 state softball semifinals on June 7; a contrast of the “contenders, maybes and pretenders” of the chase for the Sprint Cup on Feb. 17, 2008; and “Ten Things Tony (Stewart) hates.”
Wolf, Fuchs and Wilson also earned a third-place award in the category of special sections or special editions for their “Campaign ’08 — Players stump for their football teams.”
In addition, the newspaper staff won a third-place award for the general makeup of pages on June 7, June 8 and Oct. 10.
The pages on June 7 and 8 included the centerpiece stories of Tunstall and Gretna’s “March to State Finals.” The Oct. 10 pages included information about businesses and organizations feeling the impact of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s spending reduction plan.
Newspapers in Virginia compete annually in writing, photography, artwork, presentation and multimedia categories. The awards were for work judged to be the best in 2008.
The Register & Bee was judged in the group comprising mid-sized dailies in the state.
Award winners attended the association’s annual awards ceremony, which was held Saturday night in Norfolk.
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