Kudos to our team—and other local news teams!

Welcome to the October RN&R!  

Awards season is upon us. While I was pleased to see the people who created some of my favorite television shows (The Bear, Slow Horses and The Daily Show) take home Emmy Awards, I’m even more pleased to see my own colleagues recognized for their hard work. During the Nevada Press Foundation’s annual Awards of Excellence ceremony, at The Depot Craft Brewery & Distillery on Saturday, Sept. 14, the RN&R team collected 10 awards for our work in 2023-24. 

Frank Mullen, editor at large and an always-compelling storyteller, won first place for Feature Writing. Versatile longtime contributor Matt Bieker won second-place for Entertainment Feature Story. Sheila Leslie, who diligently wrote our Left Foot Forward column for many years before she retired to go play with her grandkids, earned third place for Local Column, and designer Dennis Wodzisz, who adds dimension to our print stories with his creative page layouts each month, won third place for Page One Design/Cover Design. 

The RN&R team as a whole also won first place for Advertising General Excellence, Editorial Page, and Special Section (that one was for the 2023 Best of Northern Nevada issue) and third place for Special Section or Campaign (Advertising), General Online Excellence, and Overall Design. 

It was heartening to see the hard-working journalists from other news outlets in our region recognized for their work as well. The Reno Gazette-Journal, Sierra Nevada Ally, This Is Reno, Fallon Post, Edible Reno-Tahoe, Nevada Independent and several others made strong showings in the contest, too. The news industry is still wedged between a rock and a hard place, and many of us who work in it spend much of our time glued to our desks, so it was a rare treat to be able to mingle with colleagues and share a few relaxed moments in between deadlines. 

Thank you for another year of great work, RN&R team! Thank you for recognizing our staff and contributors’ commitment to quality local journalism in the 2024 Awards of Excellence, Nevada Press Foundation!