The Press Club of Toledo celebrated local journalism Thursday by honoring several writers from The Blade and other organizations during the club’s 2024 Touchstone Awards ceremony in downtown Toledo.
“We’re here tonight to recognize excellence in our community and we’re also encouraging the next generation,” said Shaun Hegarty of WTVG-13, the event’s master of ceremonies. “Tonight, we add a distinguished set of honorees to our already terrific list of those who have demonstrated excellence.”
About 150 people attended the annual event at the Valentine Theater.
More than two dozen awards were presented, encompassing print, radio, and visual media from The Blade, the Toledo City Paper, WTOL-11, WGTE Public Media, BCSN Sports, BCAN Arts, MLiving News, and student outlets at the University of Toledo.
Additionally, community awards were presented to figures marking accomplishments in their respective fields, while scholarships were given out to UT and Bowling Green State University students. The UT scholarship was named in memory of Kurt Franck, a Press Club of Toledo leader and The Blade’s former executive editor/general manager who passed away in March.
Blade reporters were honored in the “digital/print daily-hard news” section of the proceedings.
Reporter Melissa Burden and Luke Ramseth, a former business reporter and assistant city editor, were recognized for a story they wrote in February in the midst of a response to a living condition crisis at a local public housing complex. They looked back at records and found that officials had been aware of the issue for years.
The winning story by Ms. Burden and Mr. Ramseth detailed how Toledo and Lucas County officials had long known about major health and safety problems at two large federally-subsidized apartment complexes, Ashland Manor and Covenant House .
“Keeping officials accountable is a bedrock. This piece will hopefully make sure the next issue doesn’t happen,” the panel of judges said in written comments.
After receiving the award, Ms. Burden talked in an interview about her feelings while working on the story.
“It felt like we were helping people, especially of the Ashland Manor,” she said. “When we discovered that officials had known about [the problems] for many years, I remember feeling angry. People should not be made live in the conditions that these people were living.”
Blade staffers were also recognized in the digital/print-daily arts and entertainment and the digital/print-daily feature categories.
Jason Webber, music writer, received an award for an arts-and-entertainment piece about a heckling incident during a John Mellencamp concert earlier this year at Stranahan Theater, and Maddie Coppel, the food editor, was recognized for a daily feature about cooking wild ramps called “Ramping Up.”
Additionally, Andy Wolf, a copy editor for The Blade, was awarded in the digital/print-daily sports category for a story exploring how the Fostoria High School football program fell on hard times after being one of the premier football programs in the area.
In the photojournalism category, Phillip Kaplan, a Blade multimedia journalist, was recognized for “Music, sweat and knocks,” a video showing how a high school team prepares for a new season. And Jeremy Wadsworth, The Blade’s chief photographer, won for a photo showing now vice presidential candidate and Sen. JD Vance (R., Ohio) and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) reluctantly greet each other while visiting striking UAW members outside Toledo’s Jeep plant in October.
The winners were judged by a panel of journalists and media professionals from the Denver and South Texas areas.
Four members of the Toledo community also received honors at Thursday’s event. They are:
● Barbara Hendel, society editor at The Blade, received the Norm Cartwright Award, which is named after a founding member of the Press Club of Toledo and honors outstanding efforts to promote the Press Club’s principles.
● Mark Zaborney, retired reporter from The Blade, received of the Golden Touchstone Award, which recognizes lifetime achievement in the field of journalism in Northwest Ohio.
● Ambrea Mikolajczyk, real estate developer and owner of ARK Restoration and Construction, received the Contributor Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the community, specifically someone who has made a significant impact on the quality of life in Northwest Ohio over the past year.
● Debra Monagan, president ex officio of Communica, received the Lifetime Achievement Award, for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to the community in all aspects, including business, public service and philanthropy.
“I am flattered,” Ms. Hendel said in an interview after receiving the award. “I’ve always been on the other end — helping out at the press club, organizing things.”
When Mr. Zaborney received his award, he told the audience he was honored and that he dedicated it to “so many” co-workers he had met over the years “who were committed to their craft.”
In his introduction for Mr. Zaborney, Mr. Hegarty said, "He wrote obituaries — and those were not your cookie-cutter obituaries — really digging into who this person was ... to write the last words in the person’s life. And that is a skill that we do not all have, and he has done it with such grace and such power over the years.”
Mr. Zaborney wrote obituaries for The Blade for 35 years. “What I did was I told the stories of people’s lives,” he said in an interview. “Their death was just the occasion to tell that story. In telling their stories, I was hoping to tell the history of our area, one person at a time.”
The 2024 Touchstone Awards is supported in part by The Blade, Adams Street Publishing, Communica, Nuestra Gente Community Projects, Owens Corning, SSOE Group, and BCAN/BCSN.
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