The Peninsula Clarion took home eight awards at this year’s Alaska Press Club event, held April 20-22 in Anchorage.
Sports Editor Jeff Helminiak received the club’s second-place award for best sports or outdoors column with his July 8 story, “Out of the Office: Keeping Mount Marathon Race local.”
With three awards, the Clarion swept the club’s best arts and culture criticism category, in which large and small newsrooms in Alaska compete together.
Helminiak received the club’s first-place award for arts criticism for his Dec. 29 column, “Off the Shelf: ‘Nature First’ and the Simple Life.”
General assignment reporter Jake Dye took home two Alaska Press Club awards for arts criticism, both for movie reviews published last year. The category’s second-place award went to his column, “On the Screen: ‘Bros’ takes up space on the screen and in the cultural conversation.” The third-place award went to Dye’s “On the Screen: ‘Halloween Ends’ is fine, forgettable sequel.”
Government and education reporter Ashlyn O’Hara took home three awards this year. O’Hara received the Alaska Press Club’s third-place award for best series for “Critical Needs,” a six-part series that spotlighted maintenance conditions at Kenai Peninsula Borough School District schools ahead of the Oct. 4 municipal election.
O’Hara and former Clarion reporter Camille Botello received second place for the Vern McCorkle Award for Best Business Reporting for their coverage of the Seward housing market in “Starved for new listings.” Botello and O’Hara also received the Alaska Press Club’s third-place award for best health reporting for “Reckoning with the painful legacy of opioids.”
Peninsula Clarion contributors Clark Fair and Rinantonio Viani also received the Alaska Press Club’s third-place award for history reporting for their six-part series, “Unraveling the story of Frenchy,” about a man who lived in Kenai for 20 years.
KDLL 91.9 FM in Kenai also took home two awards. Radio stations compete for audio awards, which are different from print and online awards.
News Director Sabine Poux received the club’s second-place award for best same-day feature for her coverage of a shipment of honeybees that died en route to Kenai from Atlanta. Reporter Riley Board received the club’s third-place award for best education reporting for her coverage of efforts by the Russian Old Believer village of Nikolaevsk to form a charter school.
A full list of awards given by the Alaska Press Club for work produced in 2022 will be available on the press club website at alaskapressclub.com.
Reach the Peninsula Clarion at news@peninsulaclarion.com.
