From staff reports

Reporters, photographers and editors of The Vicksburg Post picked up 20 awards, including six first-place plaques in the annual competition conducted by the Mississippi Press Association.

Sports writer Ernest Bowker picked up two of the firsts, one for his story about a Vicksburg High School track athlete and one for his reporting when veteran Tallulah football coach Racer Holstead died.

One was in the sports game story category and the other was in the sports news category.

Other firsts were:

• Gordon Cotton, feature writer, for his 12-part series on Jefferson Davis’ activities in Vicksburg, prepared as part of the Davis Bicentennial. It won in the category for planned series.

• Meredith Spencer, photojournalist, and Lauchlin Fields, reporter, for the profile prepared when Brig. Gen. Robert Crear retired from the Army. It won in the category for photo-story combinations.

• Suzanne Feliciano, photo editor, for her photo of a meth suspect. It won in the general news photo category.

• The Vicksburg Post, for best editorials.

Danny Barrett Jr., reporter, won a second place in feature writing for his story about guarding the Mississippi River Bridge in 1941 and a third place in-depth reporting for his investigation into laws governing log trucks.

Bowker also won a third place in sports feature writing, and Marty Kittrell, presentation editor, won second and third places for graphics depicting backwater flooding and cotton production.

Joshua Corban, photojournalist, and Steve Sanoski, reporter, won a third place in the photo-story combination category for their coverage of an armadillo roundup. Sean P. Murphy won a second place award for sports column writing.

Spencer won and honorable mention in sports feature photography and Katie Carter won an honorable mention for feature photography.

Overall newspaper awards included second place in general excellence as well as seconds in design and sports section and thirds in editorial page design and front page design.

The awards were presented at the culmination of the MPA’s annual meeting in Biloxi and were based on entries of news and photos published in 2008.

The competition divides the state’s daily and weekly newspapers into three size categories for the competition. The Vicksburg Post competes against other mid-size dailies in the state.