Florida Weekly writers win top honors

Florida Weekly took home five prestigious awards last Friday at the Florida Press Association's 2007 Better Weekly Newspaper Awards ceremony in Orlando.

Writer Roger Williams won first place for his Humorous Column dealing with "Going Green."

Florida Weekly's design staff also took a first-place award for Front Page Makeup.

"The design staff consistently turns out top-notch section fronts each and every week," said Creative Director Jim Dickerson.

Williams won a second-place award for Community History for his story about pirates in Southwest Florida entitled "Pirates...extremists all."

Florida Weekly' Executive Editor Jeff Cull took third place in In-depth News Reporting for a story about silly laws on the books in the Sunshine State called "Illegal?"

In the Environmental or Conservation category, Williams took honorable mention honors for "Everglades Prophecy,"

"It's a real honor to be singled out by our peers," said Cull. "I believe that the quality of our writing is what makes readers pick us up at newsstands. They've certainly shown that they can compete with any newspaper in the state."

The News-Press won seven awards in the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors contest for daily newspapers, awarded the same day, including first-place in the "Freedom of Information" category.

The Florida Press Association's Better Weekly Newspaper Awards are open to monthly, semi-monthly, weekly, semi-weekly, and tri-weekly newspaper members.

The work was published between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2007.