Thanks, Mysterious Stranger!

As most of you know (especially if you read our "About Us" page) I work as a reporter for a local small town newspaper.

Long hours, no pay, lots of blame for corrupting America.

You know, the usual.

But once a year the Society of Professional Journalists get together to celebrate the best we in our thankless job have done. Reporters and newspapers from across the state submit their best and bask in the glow of 15 minutes of fame.

"I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal"

Awards are something that newspapers love. Something about the phrase "voted world's greatest newspaper" seems to ring nicely in publishers' ears.

They are also something that I've never felt too comfortable with. We don't really do it for recognition (clearly, given the state of my bank account) and it seems weird to win awards off of other people's misfortune --- "Headless corpse thrown in river"!?! FIRST PLACE!

But I did have something that I did want to show off: my videos.

Longtime L.a.a.R.pers (hmm... better suggestions?) know that I've been making short 2 minute vignette videos to accompany some of the stories we run online.

I submitted two of our videos, with my cinematographer/producer Jaime Valdez (well, I say producer)  and then forgot all about it.

Videos are not a newspapers forte and I'm about 86 percent sure Jaime and I were the only people who entered the category, so I hadn't taken a pity win all that seriously.

Until Monday.

That rather spiffy looking placque is for a video we did last Halloween (you remember, of course) but there were also two additional awards. Another video win and --- to my surprise --- an award for feature writing.

Someone (not me) had taken one of my stories and submitted it on my behalf.

The Fight for Emmett was the story, in all its printable glory from last September.

I wasn't particularly proud of the story, so many things I wish I had done.

But it's nice to know that there are people out there who do enjoy my writing, because although I write for a living, I've never considered my writing to be that strong.

Anyway, this is long winded (and bordering on tl;dr) but I just wanted to share the good news and say thank you, mysterious stranger, for submitting my story. Thank you for believing in my work even when I didn't, and thank you for forcing me to think that there was something of mine that was not only readable, but actually noteworthy.

Third place ain't got nuthin' on me.