EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
By Ruth Luse
On April 20, winners of the New Jersey Press Association’s 2005 Better Newspaper Contest awards gathered at the Marriott Lafayette Yard Hotel in Trenton to celebrate.
Once again, we are proud to announce that the Hopewell Valley News was among those weekly newspapers being honored.
We took home three awards two firsts and one second in our circulation category. The awards are:
Staff writer John Tredrea and Lauren Graham-Delehey, a special writer, won first place for their coverage of "The Jonathan Nyce Trial" in the News Writing category of the Reporting, Writing and Illustration section of the contest.
We are particularly proud of this award because this was the first time the HVN had to cope with coverage of a murder trial. Fortunately, Hopewell Valley, to date, has been a relatively quiet community where crimes of this type do not happen. It is not easy for a weekly to handle this kind of news, because of the very fact that the paper comes out only once a week and trial sessions usually take place at least three days a week. But, Mr. Tredrea stepped up to the plate and handled coverage of the trial well, despite the fact that reliable sources often were difficult to find and trial dates changed at the last minute.
We also want to give credit here to Ms. Graham-Delehey, who grew up in the Valley, for taking on the job of trial coverage last summer, when the trial was nearly at an end and Mr. Tredrea was on vacation. We don’t know what we would have done without her.
Former sports editor Jim Green won first place for his Sports Writing Portfolio (also in the Reporting, Writing and Illustration contest section). The stories that earned him this award included: "Hopewell’s Ryan Drew on High School Success"; "Pennington Football Player is Still Tackling Life" and "Reading is Fundamental to Hopewell Community."
Mr. Green also won first place in this category for 2004.
Staff writer Tredrea, managing editor Ruth Luse and special writers Ms. Graham-Delehey and Aleen Crispino, took second place in the Responsible Journalism, Public Service category for their efforts during 2005 to prepare the people of Hopewell Township to vote in November 2005 on a proposal what could have changed their form of government. The entry "Should Hopewell Township Change Its Form of Government?" covered the work of the Hopewell Township Charter Study Commission, which recommenced that voters OK a change from the township committee form to the mayor-council-administrator form of government at the November 2005 election. Voters said no.
This special award, which recognizes the kinds of things newspapers should be doing for readers, also is known as the Lloyd P. Burns Memorial Award in honor of a former longtime NJPA executive director.
While we are proud to get awards like this, we know that without the many Valley people who help us do our jobs weekly, no such awards would be possible.
So just keep on helping us and we’ll continue to do the best we can to serve you well.

