Please join us at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 28 for our annual Excellence in Journalism awards ceremony at the Yogi Berra Museum on the campus of Montclair State University.

Award winners and NJ SPJ members are free; $10 per guest.

Program: 
Wine & cheese reception
Panel discussion with our three top winners about the stories behind their stories
Awards ceremony

Panelists:

• Katherine Milsop of The Community News of Fair Lawn. Katherine was the first place winner of the Stuart and Beverley Awbrey Award for stories about Thomas Buchak, a seriously epileptic 21-year-old caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare.Katherine publicized his plight, spurring fundraising for his benefit, and state and local community action on his behalf.
   
• Christoper Baxter of the Star Ledger. Chris won first place in the daily newspaper category of our Tim O'Brien Award for his exposé entitled Private Schools, Hidden Riches. "The level of detail and depth involved in this investigation, the personal effort required to obtain and catalogue the information, the care taken to provide as much information to the public as possible, including a searchable online database, and the detailed comparisons in spending oversight for public and private schools made this report the most outstanding of a terrific set of entries in this category," one of our judges wrote.  

• Mary Diduch of The Record. Winner in the daily division of our Wilson Barto Awards, Mary was recognized for her work on three excellent stories: Infighting Colors Emerson Politics, Montvale DPW workers paid not to work as they wait for court to decide if they keep their jobs, and Grieving parents turn pain of losing a child into activism. The award honors the outstanding achievement of a first-year journalist.