People’s Choice is back for 2024

A year ago, The Commercial Review tried something new.

We launched our first “People’s Choice” special section.

The concept was relatively simple:

•You vote for your favorites

•We tally the votes

•We recognize the winners in various categories in the “People’s Choice” special section

The new idea received an overwhelming response, with hundreds of votes and plenty of community enthusiasm for their favorites.

The inaugural People’s Choice special section ran Feb. 24.

We learned some things from our first go-round with People’s Choice and we’ll be making some adjustments this time around.

But the biggest change with this year’s People’s Choice special section is that it will be greatly expanded. With The Graphic Printing Company’s purchase of The News-Gazette (Winchester) and The News Times (Hartford City) in May, many of our special sections are now being distributed in all of our publications. That will be true for People’s Choice.

How will this work?

Our intention is to print a single “People’s Choice” section that will have winners broken down into the coverage areas for The Commercial Review, The News-Gazette and The News Times. That way, businesses and other entities from each of our communities get recognized and all of the winners are shared amongst all of the communities we cover.

Other changes this year:

•We will slightly modify the categories

•Rather than highlighting the No. 1 vote-getter across all categories, we will instead have a category for “overall favorite.” That winner will be highlighted in the special section.

•Votes will be accepted online only. We discovered last year that it takes a tremendous amount of time to hand-count ballots. (And, though we had a good number of paper ballots, those votes did not change the outcome in any category.)

One other detail to note: Who gets votes, who gets highlighted, who gets recognized is entirely up to you, our readers. We won’t provide a list to choose from, as that leads to pitfalls of favoring one business over another or leaving someone out. It’s all up to you.

So, on another page in today’s paper, you’ll find the list of categories in which we are accepting votes. You can vote by going online to thecr.com and clicking on “People’s Choice.”

We will accept votes until Jan. 31.

So, do you have a favorite pizza joint, community event, dentist, hair stylist, etc.? Vote for them and let them know.

Last year, this new special section proved to be a great way to support and highlight local. We hope that process will only continue and grow in 2024. — R.C.