ANNAPOLIS — The Cumberland Times-News won seven awards in the 2022 Local News Builds Community Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association Awards.
Sportswriter Alex Rychwalski earned first place for his March 16, 2022, column, “I’ll never recover from that shot.” The story chronicled a buzzer-beating basket made by former Bishop Walsh basketball player Mikey Allen in the Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament.
Rychwalski also won second place honors in the feature story category for “Cayden Bratton running over Type 1 diabetes.”
Rychwalski and sports correspondent Kyle Bennett took second place honors in the Multimedia Storytelling category for their Views from the Pressbox podcast featuring Fort Hill and Mountain Ridge head football coaches Zach Alkire and Ryan Patterson.
“It’s gratifying to see these journalists’ hard work be recognized in this way,” Publisher Chip Minemyer said. “They’re dedicated, hard-working professionals and are very deserving of the accolades.”
Former Times-News reporter Lindsay Renner-Wood received second place in Medical/Science division for her story “Keyser couple learn to live with Alzheimer’s diagnosis.”
Other second place awards went to photographer Ken Nolan in the Feature category for his “Slippery Ride” photo and Managing Editor John Smith in Breaking News for the photo “Investigators probe Romney school blaze.”
“Our reporting staff — both news and sports — produced some great work last year,” Smith said. “Awards are not why we’re in this business but it’s always good to be recognized by our colleagues in the industry.”
The awards were released by category this week on the press association’s YouTube channel. Best of Show winners were announced during Friday’s MDDC Conference at the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel in Annapolis.
Nearly 1,400 entries in 85 categories were judged by the Louisiana Press Association.
The Times-News competed with newspapers in Division C, including the Carroll County Times, Cecil Whig, Delaware State News, Daily Record, Daily Times of Salisbury and the Star Democrat of Easton.