On Friday night, the Georgia Press Association (GPA) held its annual convention in Jekyll Island. At the convention, it was announced that our team here at The Covington News won multiple top three awards across multiple categories of the Better Newspaper Contest. 

The biggest award our team received was being No. 3 in the General Excellence, which means we’re the third best newspaper publication in Georgia for newspapers our size. This comes after last year being recognized as the No. 1 newspaper for our size in the state. 

Both are honors to be proud of and I know I am. I’ve been blessed and fortunate to be a part of a superstar staff that is being recognized among the best statewide.  

Kudos to advertising director Cynthia Blackshear-Warren, advertising representatives Lee Ann Avery and Brian Worton and Legals Clerk Alicia Goolsby for helping our team enjoy all of this success this go round. 

You might even call us the “Dream Team.” 

To help lead to our top three finish were multiple individual honors. For instance, we had two, first place awards in editorial and won first place in five advertising categories. 

While I’m proud of everyone’s accomplishments, there are four specific awards I’m most proud of as sports editor of The Covington News. 

Our correspondent Garrett Pitts, who is a college student at Kennesaw State University, too, wrote three stories for him to win first place in the Sports Feature Story category. He also finished second in the Sports Photo category. 

I was awarded second and third place in the Sports Features Story category as well, with six of my stories being recognized. 

That means, of the newspapers our size in Georgia, our team is considered the best at telling sports feature stories. And that just makes this sports editor so happy. 

I personally never aspired to accomplish that, specifically but, knowing our sports coverage team swept this particular category is awesome. My main mission is to give our readers more in-depth, eye-catching content that they’ll subscribe and purchase newspapers for. 

In fact, when I became sports editor of The Covington News in July 2021, I wanted our publication to begin digging deeper into more behind the scenes type stories. My personal belief is, more readers and consumers will get more from a feature-type story than just a run-of-the-mill recap of a game or other stuff. 

Garrett and I share this philosophy, too. 

Toward the end of summer 2022, Garrett and I met to discuss our coverage plans for the 2022-23 school year. In that conversation, we both honed in on the idea of producing more feature-type stories instead of being just game story oriented. 

Since that moment inside Amici’s restaurant, both Garrett and myself — as well as DJ Moore who joined our team later — have covered, reported on and written about some unique features. 

Even before that, what interested me the most about storytelling is finding those stories that you can’t just find in a statistics book. Whether it be features or profiles, I’ve always been drawn more to those types of stories. 

It takes more energy and creativity to find and write those kinds of articles, but it is so worth it, I believe. 

But knowing our concerted efforts of telling more feature-type stories was recognized by the GPA is a huge honor for me. Plus, to see Garrett’s individual growth as a reporter, storyteller and professional is a huge honor I have week-to-week. 

I’m glad that his work as a journalist and photographer was awarded, because he’s a superstar for our coverage team in a lot of ways. 

I’ve already had a few people ask, “Which stories and photos won these awards for you?” Unfortunately, that information won’t be made public for a few weeks. But, as soon as it is, we will share it on our @covnewssports Facebook and Twitter accounts. So, stay tuned. 

In the meantime, I want to give a special “Thank you” to the coaches and players who have interviewed with us and helped us tell these stories. Without each one of your help, accomplishing this wouldn’t be possible. 

Also, thank you to the devoted readers and followers of our sports coverage of Newton County area athletics. We appreciate all of you. 

Lastly, I want to make one promise. Even though we obtained such high honors statewide, the plan is not to rest on our laurels. Our team still aspires to keep seeking out those stories an average fan can’t see and doing our best to share those in a compelling fashion. 

Overall, we will keep pushing the envelope forward.