The Reminder’s crowded trophy case is about to get a little more crowded.
Flin Flon’s community newspaper won two awards and earned a podium finish in a third category in this year’s Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association (SWNA) Better Newspapers Competition. Results of the competition, covering stories, photos and newspapers printed in 2022, were released online by the group May 12.
Editor and reporter Eric Westhaver received two first-place honours, both for opinion columns he wrote as part of “In Our Words”, the paper’s weekly opinion column, found on page 4. For the columns, Westhaver finished first in the Columnist of the Year category and in the Editorial Writing Excellence category.
Westhaver also won similar awards in last year’s Manitoba Community Newspapers Association (MCNA) Better Newspapers Competition, claiming the Columnist of the Year award in 2021 and 2022 for Manitoba.
Westhaver also finished third in an additional category, receiving the finalist spot in the Best Educational Coverage K-12 category for a story in the August 31 issue of the Reminder about schools in both Flin Flon and Creighton introducing outdoor classroom spaces. A story by Westhaver finished third in the same category in the previous year’s awards.
The Reminder received six nominations in both the 2020 and 2021 editions of the awards, winning once last year.
As a newspaper that covers communities in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan and as a member of both the SWNA and the Manitoba Community Newspaper Association (MCNA), The Reminder is eligible to apply for annual awards from both organizations.
The Reminder thanks SWNA and the competition’s judges for their consideration and thanks its readers and community for their support.
