It was a sweepstakes sweep for the Great Bend Tribune. 

At the 2019 Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence luncheon Saturday, the newspaper earned the sweepstakes award for both editorial and advertising. The honors were the culminating event of the annual three-day KPA convention at Topeka’s Capitol Plaza Hotel.

“These awards mean great deal to us, being recognized by our peers for what we do here,” said Tribune Publisher Mary Hoisington. “They are an affirmation of the quality work we do here and the dedication of our hard-working journalists, account representatives, designers and artists.”

But, it means more than that, she said. 

“The honors are a representation of our community,” Hoisington said. “We are committed to being a community newspaper. Our strength comes from our partnerships with those we serve.”

Points are given to a newspaper for each first, second and third place award received, and the newspapers with the highest cumulative points in their division are declared the winners. There are separate awards for news and writing, and for advertising.

Newspapers are divided into divisions based on circulation and whether they are daily or non-daily. The Tribune falls into the Daily Division II with a circulation from 3,801 to 9,400.

In all, the Tribune garnered 63 awards for both editorial and advertising, 39 for news and 24 for ads. They were about evenly divided between first, second and third placings.

There were numerous individual awards, but there were also several demonstrating overall excellence, such those for design and layout excellence and news and writing excellence. There were also many in both news and ads that involved the collaboration of multiple staff members.

“The awards are well deserved,” said Managing Editor Dale Hogg. “These folks representing all departments here all do great things and this validates those efforts.”

The individual honors are fantastic in their own right, showing the high-caliber work done at the Tribune, Hogg said. But, “equally impressive are the group endeavors that show how we as a team work together to be the communities dominate source of local news and information.”

Hogg said this goes beyond the walls of the Tribune office. “These awards really belong to our readers and others we serve. It is the telling of their stories and the promoting of their businesses that are our reason for existing.”

Hoisington agreed.

“We want to thank all of those who have supported us this past year, and in the 142 years we’ve called this area home,” she said. 

For an entire list of the awards, visit the Great Bend Tribune online at gbtribune.com.