The CR receives HSPA awards

INDIANAPOLIS — The Commercial Review added to its list of journalism awards Friday.

The newspaper received five awards, including two first-place honors, at the Hoosier State Press Association Journalism Conference and Awards Luncheon at The Marriott North.

The CR finished fourth in the general excellence category in Division III (daily newspapers with a circulation of less than 6,000). It trailed The Daily Reporter (Greenfield), The Daily Journal (Franklin) and The Times (Seymour), all of which are owned by AIM Media Indiana.

The Commercial Review has earned at least five awards in the HSPA contest every year since 2011.

The top honor for The CR during Friday’s awards luncheon was first place for its website — thecr.com.

Editor and publisher Ray Cooney also took first place for headline writing. It was his sixth award in the last 12 years for headline writing and marked his second win in that category.

He also received a third-place award for best sports feature photo.

Reporter Bailey Cline picked up two more awards for The Commercial Review. She was second for best news coverage with no deadline pressure and third for best in-depth feature or feature package.

Both awards were the first in those categories for Cline, who joined The CR’s staff in 2020.

Also Friday, former CR reporter Steve Garbacz earned three Division III awards for his work with The News Sun (Kendallville).

He took first and second places for best business/economic coverage and received a third-place award for best news coverage with no deadline pressure. (Garbacz, who was editor of The News Sun and executive editor for KPC News, left the journalism industry in May and is now a public relations specialist for Parkview Health in Fort Wayne.)

Awards presented Friday covered the period between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023.