COMMUNITY SERVICE: The Eunice News is recognized with a top award by the Louisiana Press Association for its coverage of the Experience Louisiana Festival

The Eunice News coverage of the Experience Louisiana Festival held on the LSUE campus in October 2015 won first place in the Community Service/Service to Readers category of the Louisiana Press Association’s Better Newspaper Competition.
The state’s 58 newspapers are divided into three divisions for the Community Service competition. Normally, the newspapers compete in seven divisions.
The Community Service award was one of 10 awards won by The Eunice News. Six of those were first-place awards.
The awards were announced Saturday at the association’s annual awards luncheon held in Lake Charles.
The Community Service contest criteria included the quality and depth of the newspaper involvement and its presentation to its readers. The impact of the project upon the newspaper’s community is also considered.
Harlan Kirgan, editor of The Eunice News, said covering the Experience Louisiana Festival was a priority at the newspaper.
“It was the first Experience Louisiana Festival and we wanted to help make it a success. The festival’s goal is to offer a blend of the cultures of Louisiana, provide a new tourism venue for Eunice and grow into a fundraiser for the Eunice Rotary Club’s community projects,” Kirgan said.
“And, it was going to be a fun event,” he added.
Dwight Jodon, one of the key organizers of Experience Louisiana Festival, said,
“The biggest take away for us is how significant and meaningful a role that The Eunice News took with the festival as a partner,” he said.
“The difference for us from the beginning ... was that The Eunice News was right at our side and involved as partners, which was a big deal,” he said. “When you look across all of the participants and the partners we had it is impressive.”
In a letter supporting The Eunice News’ entry, Jodon and Patricia Dossman, wrote, “The Eunice News implemented a series of articles – running several months – featuring and introducing folk demonstrators, musicians and other participants of the festival. This coverage played an invaluable role in defining what the festival would have to offer, attracting interest and attention from people all across Louisiana. Organizers heard from the public on a daily basis, complimenting The Eunice News on the informational and educational promotion of festival components. As 2015 was our first year, this was an amazing boost for the project.”
Jodon and Dossman, said the coverage assisted with volunteer recruitment, attracting quality exhibitors and making the project credible.
The Eunice News coverage included a 20-part series about festival participants and special section.
Other newspapers winning first-place for Community Service were the New Orleans Advocate in Division A and Capital City News in Division C.
The Eunice News, which competed in Division 4, which includes newspapers with circulations averaging 1,501 to 3,000, also won first place in the General Excellence category.
General Excellence judges a news based on its overall creativity, layout and design as well as reader appeal, news quality and editorial page. Special consideration is given to the overall variety of ads and advertisers, classified page/section and how public notices are handled by the publication.
Other first-place awards won by The Eunice News were:
Best Breaking News Story for its coverage of the Mayci Breaux memorial held on the LSUE campus by Kirgan;
Best News Coverage by the staff. The category is judged on writing skills and reader appeal, strong emphasis placed on planning, depth and organization, and use of headlines and photos;
Best Headline, which included the headline “Mayor: Growing leaf issue must be stemmed” written by Kirgan;
Best Services Advertisement, non-retail, for a Southwest Loan advertisement, by Misty Gilley.
The Eunice News’ other awards were:
Third Place, Best Sports Story, with stories by Tom Dodge, sports editor.
Third Place, Best News Photo by Claudette Olivier;
Third Place, Best Photo Package by Claudette Olivier; and
Third Place, Best Ad Campaign for advertising for Sun Sports by Misty Gilley.