Ohio SPJ Hands Out Awards, (Drunkenly?) Names Scene Best Weekly

The Ohio Society of Professional Journalists announced its 2007 awards yesterday, and they were particularly kind to this little rag of ours. We never thought all those unmarked vodka bottles we sent would actually sway the judges, but how else can you explain such a bounty for a gang of unruly (although handsome!) scribes. Competing against the largest papers in the state, Scene snagged a total of nine awards, including Best Weekly and five other first-place honors. The winners, with links to the offending stories, are: - Lisa Rab, first place, newsmaker profile; second place, environmental coverage - Denise Grollmus, first place, arts reporting - Elaine T. Cicora, first place, arts profile - Erich Burnett, first place, headline writing - Joe P. Tone, first place, sports coverage - Rebecca Meiser, second place, medical/science reporting - and, of course, part-time kitten-juggler Jared Klaus, second place, children’s issues The Columbus Dispatch took home the most hardware: 17 awards, by our count, including Best Daily. They must bribe with top-shelf. By contrast, The Plain Dealer, which enjoys describing itself as the "largest newspaper in the state," used those resources to take home just six awards. They included, oddly, the award for Best Columnist in Ohio, which went to Tom Feran, whose column got taken away by his own bosses ["A day without Feran," First Punch, January 17]. To celebrate Scene's achievements, the powers-that-be, after much finagling, have agreed to let us install a permanent Crocodle Mile in the newsroom. Finally, all the hard work pays off. -- The Management