APA awards are nice reward for hard work

Last week the Alabama Press Association announced the winners of its annual Better Newspaper Contest and the staff of The Franklin County Times won five awards.

While the paper does not exist to win awards, it is nice for the staff to be recognized for their hard work as they try to provide a great community-based publication for readers.

The staff strives to provide the citizens of Franklin County the best local coverage possible and wants this newspaper to be a product this community can be proud of.

Last year The Franklin County Times won a single award. This year the paper won five.

That is a good trend, but the staff is not satisfied. With dozens of entries submitted, five awards only motivates us to do better in the future to build a better paper for our readers.

The awards only let us know that we are heading in the right direction.

It is only because of the citizens and happenings around the county providing The Franklin County Times with interesting stories, that our publication is able to give this unique coverage and to win these awards:

• Best Press Work — First Place, Tommy Nichols for his work on The Madison County Record, which is printed at our facility.
• Best Feature Photo — Second Place, Melissa Cason for “An amazing day.”
• Best Human Interest Column — Third Place, Scot Beard for “Late Romance is better than none.”
• Best Use of Graphics or Illustrations — Third Place, Scot Beard for “Disappearing teams.”
• Best Editorial Page or Section — Third Place, The Franklin County Times.