The Times has received five awards in the annual editorial contest sponsored by the Local Media Association.
Black Press newspapers in the Lower Mainland received a total of 23 awards, and Paula Carlson, editor of the Surrey-North Delta Leader, was named editor of the year by the association.
The competition is for community newspapers, both daily and non-daily, across North America. Entry categories include virtually all editorial aspects of the community newspaper business.
The Times won first place for best environmental coverage, for newspapers over 20,000 circulation, for “Painted, By Numbers.” This feature by Brenda Anderson, published June 10, 2014, focused on biologist Andrea Gielens’ work with the Greater Vancouver Zoo in preserving western painted turtles, which are under threat in Langley.
The Times also received four second place awards — for its editorial page; entertainment and lifestyles section; for feature series and sports writing.
The feature series award was for a series called “Parental pressures in a fast-paced digital world.” This series of three stories by Monique Tamminga looked at the challenges in parenting today, due to rapidly-changing technology. The stories ran on June 10, June 23 and July 28, 2014.
The sports writing award was for the story “Heart like a wheel,” about Canadian wheelchair basketball player Jack Kosterman. Written by Gary Ahuja, it was published on Sept. 3, 2013.