Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/96748
Division 6 Headline Writing/Category 7 First place Feds foresee hard time for Gypsy psychic clan; For dad, son: Jail, bail, jail again; Big sales ring, are you listening? Tom Meares, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) Comments: Big topics narrowed to a few compelling words with no loss of context. Excellent job! Second place Silence is golden; Shining recommendation; Route and holler Corey McMaken, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) Comments: Creativity flows and draws reader interest. You are a gifted writer and thinker! Third place Tenderloin loving care; Somebody must have squealed; Deceased, but not RIP Staff, Evansville Courier & Press Comments: Creative, on-point, snappy headlines that stood out. Excellent work! Best Short Feature Story/Category 8 First place War diary to feed mind, soul, body Jerry Davich, Post-Tribune (Merrillville) Comments: None given. Second place Lucky 13: What are the odds? Dave Stephens, South Bend Tribune Comments: None given. Third place How to tell a joke? Emma Downs, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) Comments: None given. Best Profile Feature/Category 9 First place Getting it all down Jaclyn Youhana, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) Comments: Youhana���s profile on the 90-year-old WWII veteran pulls you in from the beginning and holds your attention until the last sentence. Details of Shoudel���s past and present blend seamlessly together, reflecting a man who has seen more than most and carries with him some dark memories. At the same time, Youhana manages to capture another side to the veteran: a gentle man who cares deeply for the people close to him and who appreciates each day for what it is. Beautifully written and an excellent example of a true profile piece. Second place Alvarez was the man with the plan Tom Noie, South Bend Tribune Comments: Noie���s piece on University of Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez eloquently paints the picture of a former coach who taught his players not only to win games but to be better people. The writing is strong and concise, guiding the reader clearly from beginning to end. Noie includes comments from several of Alvarez���s former players and colleagues, showing all sides of the former coach and allowing for those who know Alvarez���s story best to tell it. Third place Brothers still have pages in common Emma Downs, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) Comments: In a story about two brothers who didn���t make sensible business partners, Downs clearly captures the humor and irony of their situation. By the end, you feel as though you know the brothers personally, because Downs has demonstrated their strikingly different personalities. The details ��� specific moments from the brothers��� childhood, the look and feel of their two shops ��� only add to the piece, rather than weigh it down. Page 60 ��� Feds foresee hard time for Gypsy psychic clan ��� For dad, son: Jail, bail, jail again ��� Big sales ring, are you listening? Tom Meares The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) War diary to feed mind, soul, body Jerry Davich Post-Tribune (Merrillville) The makeshift diary is more than six decades old, yet still in remarkably good shape. It���s made from a cardboard box and brown paper bag pages, strung together with leftover string and a thread of hope. ���Notice: Entries in the log are for my own personal use. If you don���t like them, (expletive) you,��� wrote its World War II author, Doyle W. Waggoner, a U.S. Navy ordnance specialist who was originally from Shreveport, La. Waggoner was a weary but wily prisoner of war in the Philippines, one of thousands of U.S. soldiers in the war crime called the Bataan Death March. At the end of Waggoner���s diary is a brief written history of the brutal march. In April 1942, the Japanese military assembled nearly 80,000 prisoners and marched them up the east coast of Bataan in that war-torn country. The POWs, already weak from thirst, hunger and disease, were subjected to barbarous acts of inhumanity along the 80-mile route. The ones who couldn���t keep up were executed. The ones who could faced a worse fate. They were abused, tortured and forced to relieve themselves while walking. Or else. Thousands died along the way. According to various news accounts, Waggoner was tortured for ���stealing��� a handful of rotting rice in July 1945. He was tied up outside for three days and nights, and regularly beaten by Japanese guards and soldiers. Along the way, he lost his mind and was buried alive, according to fellow soldiers. But not before he crafted the diary, filled with page after page of hand-etched recipes for meals that he dreamed of eating while being held captive. Plum pudding. Pecan pie. And ���No. 7 dinner,��� consisting of noodle soup, hamburger steak, celery, coffee and mango pie, among other pie-in-the-sky dishes during his captivity. ���Everything in here is about recipes, menu items and ingredients,��� explained Pastor Gary Nagy of Trinity Lutheran Church in Hobart, who now possesses the diary. ���Doyle Waggoner must have had a background in food preparation. Some of the recipes are so ornate and detailed.��� Nagy received the diary from his aunt, whose husband, Joe Nagy, was a World War II soldier/POW also involved in the death march. ���Store this for me,��� Joe Nagy told his wife after returning from the war. She did just that, for several decades. Joe died in the 1970s, never saying a word about the diary and its tortured memories. In 2002, she remembered that her nephew, Gary Nagy, enjoyed reading about history. That���s when the time-capsule diary was ���inherited��� by Nagy, For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� Getting it all down Jaclyn Youhana The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) Carl Shoudel punctuates many of his sentences with ���OK.��� ���Like I said, I���m one of the lucky ones, OK? There were all different types of men we knew, OK?��� He wants to make sure you understand that he knows he could have died ��� 70 percent of all infantrymen in World War II did, he says ��� and he wants you to know that there is nothing that made him any better of a soldier than the next guy. It was having the bullet enter his buttocks instead of his heart, and the Japanese sniper hiding in the treetops picking off the soldier next to him, and the bayonet entering his thigh instead of his gut. Nothing more than a little bit of luck. He keeps some proof of that luck framed on his wall in his room at Georgetowne Place Retirement. It���s a Purple Heart awarded in recognition of Shoudel���s wounds. It���s one of 14 medals and ribbons in the frame, but it means the most to Shoudel, he says; perhaps it���s those two pins on the ribbon. The bronze oak leaf cluster on the ribbon represents an additional wound. The silver oak leaf cluster represents five. That���s seven wounds Shoudel suffered fighting for the U.S. Army. Shoudel, 90, is a veteran of the Korean War and World War II, where he fought in the southwest Pacific. He wanted to share his memories of New Guinea, Japan and the Philippine Islands, as most of the wartime memoirs he sees detailing World War II deal with battles in Europe. The result is the book, ���The Price We Paid for a Life of Freedom: The Memoir of a WWII and Korean War Veteran.��� Ideal collaborator More than three years ago, Shoudel decided he wanted to put together a memoir of his time in the Army. For most of his notes, he used yellow legal pads, but many memories are written in letter-style journals dating to the ���40s. He had all the stories there, piled high in the ledgers, but he needed someone to transpose his words and memories to a computer. After a few failed attempts at asking people he knew to work on his book, Shoudel put up a notice at IPFW. That���s how he found co-author Vivian Sade. Sade���s brother was taking classes at the university, and he saw Shoudel���s advertisement. Sade, who is now a reporter for The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne), met with Shoudel, and it was an immediate fit. ���He said, ���You know, I was machine-gunned in the ass, and there���s no way you can write around that,��� ��� Sade remembers from their first meeting. ���And I told him, ���Why would I write around that?��� Apparently, he couldn���t shock me enough to make me leave.��� Which is what, she says, Shoudel was looking for ��� someone who wouldn���t scare easily. ���He was an Army sergeant,��� Sade says. ���That was my first impression. He was barking.��� But he has clearly softened in the 3�� years they have known each other. Every time Sade sees him, he hugs and kisses her goodbye. To start the process of For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.���