April Best of the Month

Congratulations to Caroline Wertz, selected Best Overall for April for her work on the four Outlook special
sections. Night News Director Amy Raymond said Carolines work on this years Outlook is what effective
Collaboration looks like. She worked with reporters, editors, photographers, advertising and production to
design all four sections for this year. She has a talent for managing big projects, and this years Outlook
gave her the chance to put those skills on display in a big way. She manages her time well and has a gift
for limiting the scope of design projects to the range of what is possible to do well.
Best Beat or Breaking News Story
From: Clytie Bunyan
Nominee: Tim Willert
Common education has been a hotbed of activity over the last few months, so its no surprise that Tim
would break the story that Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Rob Neu was out, leaving the
job after less than two years. He also broke the story about Aurora Lora's desire to be superintendent.
Lora was a finalist for the top job two years ago.
http://newsok.com/article/5490949
OKC school district boss Neu plans to resign his position
http://newsok.com/article/5491834
OKC schools chief is 'out of the office'
http://newsok.com/article/5492102
Associate schools chief says she's ready for opportunity
http://newsok.com/article/5494102
Oklahoma City school district cuts ties with superintendent
Best Business Story or Business Feature
From: Don Mecoy
Nominee: Richard Mize
An interesting take on the sale, at a big loss, of Kevin Durant's Gaillardia home. Richard was able to
produce a very readable yarn about the deal, in which the home sold for $925,000 five years after the
Thunder star paid $1.8 million. Neither Durant nor any of the real estate folks involved in the transaction
would comment for the story. But Richard delved into recent sales in Gaillardia to find that few sellers are
receiving what they paid for homes there. A big hat tip to Erik Horne, who tipped us off about the sale, and
to Erik and Anthony Slater, who asked Durant about the sale during Thunder press opportunities.
http://newsok.com/article/5490059
Best Sports Story
From: Mike Sherman
Nominee: Anthony Slater
Anthony takes readers inside the friendship between Thunder 7-footers who dubbed themselves the
Stache Brothers and who now as of this week are closing OKC playoff games in ways the Thunder has
never done.
http://newsok.com/article/5491490

Best Feature Story

From: Matt Price

Nominee: Brandy McDonnell
A Purple Heart recipient helps fellow veterans heal through creative writing classes. The story was picked
up by Stripes.com and Veterans Today and shared by multiple veteran-centric sites. The Oklahoma Arts
Council and the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs also shared the story via social media.
Readers comments: Brandon Kreischer, Hats off to you, Sir. Rob Arrington: I can't wait to read all of the
stories these Veterans have been working on! Tanvier Peart: Love this! #Oklahoma
http://newsok.com/article/5493489
Best Enerprise/In-Depth/Project
From: Don Mecoy
Nominees: Paul Monies, Randy Ellis
Paul and Randy delved deep into the issue of state-funded incentives for wind power, noting that
lawmakers' intent to spur development of wind power in Oklahoma had worked perhaps too well. Now, in
the midst of a budget crisis, an oil-and-gas backed advocacy group has called for an end to such
incentives, which are costing the state millions of dollars more than they ever anticipated. Their stories
and accompanying graphics and photos laid out the issue and explored the potential of continuing or
changing the program. At the heart of the problem is a lack of control and evaluation of lawmakers' tax
credits.
http://newsok.com/article/5493853
http://archive.newsok.com/olive/apa/oklahoman/SharedView.Article.aspx?href=DOK
%2F2016%2F04%2F24&id=Ar00102&sk=F7D2E9BD
Best Watchdog Story
From: Robby Trammell
Nominee: Ben Felder
Page 1 Bidding laws ignored in Yukon? Splitting contracts into multiple invoices to avoid getting council
approval is not legal
http://archive.newsok.com/olive/apa/oklahoman/SharedView.Article.aspx?href=DOK
%2F2016%2F04%2F24&id=Ar00108&sk=C222336E
Best Column/Opinion/First Person
From: Clytie Bunyan
Nominee: Mercy Adhiambo
Mercy did a fantastic job showing us that mental health is not uniquely an American issue and, using a
personal example, gave a glimpse into how its perceived in her home country of Kenya.
http://newsok.com/article/5494181
Best Video
From: Nathan Poppe
Nominee: Greg Singleton
Greg spent three days hauling 50 pounds of gear on his back to create what I feel is one of the best
videos I've seen him make. He also created several preview videos for NMF9 and handled a lot of the
production and planning himself. Greg's dedication is contagious, and he's incredible to work with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oILJZwXWTs
Best Blog/Social Media Effort
From: Paula Burkes
Nominee: Paula Burkes
Moved by the third anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, columnist Paula Burkes used the
occasion to write about a poignant Facebook reunion with a pediatric cancer survivor, now a young
married woman/Mass. teacher, for whom she ran Boston in 1995 and to advance the following Sunday's
executive feature on David Hill, cofounder of our Memorial Marathon, which marks our city's own
heartache.
http://newsok.com/mind-your-own-business-she-had-boston-strong-at-hello/article/5491786
Best Photo

From: Doug Hoke

Nominee: Chris Landsberger
Shane Shadid walks his Bernedoodle puppies in the dog park at the Edge in Midtown Apartments in
Oklahoma City, Okla. on Thursday, April 14, 2016. Photo by Chris Landsberger, The Oklahoman
The skill needed to pull off this low-angle shot of two excited puppies is huge!

Best Design/Illustration

From: Moran Elwell

Nominee: Moran Elwell
I had a lot of elements to get on the page and tried to do it in a way that was still visually interesting. I
wanted to show all of the movies related to the last item and needed a way to get them all together
without dominating the page.

Best Headline
From: Tom Maupin
Nominee: Felicia Murray
For OKC district, its out with Neu -- Page 1a, all, April 26. Rob Neu is old as head of the Oklahoma
City school district.

Special Effort to Improve Accuracy

From: Robert Griffin

Nominee: Caleb McWilliams
After the drive deadline while checking a graphic on Page 2A with the superintendent turnover story,
Caleb spotted a minor inconsistency with the lines representing length of employment for two former
superintendents. While fixing that, he uncovered several other inconsistencies with employment dates
and termination dates. He spent the time between edition deadlines researching the correct data in
Searchy and then fixing the graphic for the city edition.
Special Recognition
From: Caroline Wertz
Nominee: Ben Felder
Ben's only been here a couple months, but his bylines have become a regular sight in daily and Sunday
editions. He's even had a Sunday 1A story every week since he started with countless daily and inside
bylines in between. On top of that, these are stories that are always well-done and topical. He hasn't
wasted any time getting settled in and has set a high bar for all of us who also are facing deadlines and
juggling different tasks.
http://content.newsok.com.s3.amazonaws.com:80/newsok/bestofmonth/examples/_ben_felder____Searc
hy.pdf