Published: June 25, 2006 12:40 am      

Star brings home several MPA awards

BILOXI — The Meridian Star won 12 awards here Saturday in the Mississippi Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper Contest.

The awards, recognizing work during 2005, were presented at the association‚s summer convention.

The Star’s honors included third place in General Excellence for newspapers with circulations between 9,000 and 20,000. The General Excellence category recognizes overall newspaper quality.

Chief photographer Paula Merritt and staff writer Georgia E. Frye each won a first-place award. Merritt won first place in Best Spot News Photograph for her picture of Hart-Hall Ltd. during Hurricane Katrina. The winning image captured fallen trees and blowing rain as the historic structure at 15th Street and 24th Avenue withstood the storm’s winds. Frye won first place for Best General Interest Column, including her commentary after an October visit to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast.

Merritt won three other awards, including second place in Best Sports Action Photograph for a picture of Casey Burt competing in the 2005 State Games wakeboard competition. Merritt and staff photographer Kyle Carter shared third-place honors in Best Pictorial Series in One Issue for their Hurricane Katrina coverage.

Merritt also won third place in Best General News Photograph for her coverage of Sgt. Robert Allen McNail‚s February 2005 funeral service. Sgt. McNail, 30, a member of the Mississippi Army National Guard’s 150th Combat Engineer Battalion, died in a Humvee accident in Iraq. Senior staff writer Ida Brown won third place in Best Spot News Story for the initial news article on Sgt. McNail’s death.

Managing Editor Suzanne Monk won two awards: second place for Best Commentary Column and third place in Best Feature Story for her profile of homicide victim Larry Finch.

Sports Editor Rocky Higginbotham won second place in Best Sports Column.

Editor Steve Stewart, who resigned this month to become president and publisher of The Tidewater News in Franklin, Va., won third place for Best Editorial Page. He received honorable mention for Best Commentary Column.