Star wins six regional awards

The Green River Star and Editor Hannah Romero were recently recognized for journalistic excellence among news outlets in the Rocky Mountain region.

Romero won six awards in the annual Top of the Rockies contest, which is a regional, multi-platform contest for reporters and news organizations in the four-state area.

The contest, hosted by the Colorado Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, had its awards ceremony last weekend. There were more than 1,850 entries from more than 80 news media outlets and 20 freelancers from Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.

"The competition continues to grow each year, and we are honored to highlight outstanding journalism throughout the four-state region," said contest coordinator Deb Hurley Brobst. "These are hard-working journalists who deserve recognition of their efforts."

Romero won two first-place awards in the contest. One was in the Religion Feature category for the feature story "The life-changing gift of a shoebox."

The judges' comments said the article was "a very inspiring story that is well-narrated that you can actually imagine the subject's life living by a dumpster, and being saved by a 'shoebox' gift that changes her life."

The other first-place award was in the Science and Technology category for the article "County considers technological innovations."

"This story grabbed my attention from the start, and the way the story made sense of the tech without any glitzy, overly-technical terms feels like it can speak to anybody," the judge commented. "Rather than talking over readers' heads, it's an approachable story and really does a great job of showing all POVs."

Romero also won second place in News Reporting Single Story for "Gas chamber discussions," second place in Personal/Humor Column for a personal column package, third place in Ag and Environment Reporting for "Wild and Free," and third place in Business Feature for "Fighting for a fair contract."