The Dispatch sports, photography teams win major awards

Peter Gill, The Columbus Dispatch
·2 min read

The Dispatch photography and sports reporting teams won major awards this week.

Photographers from The Dispatch and its sister community news publication ThisWeek won 16 awards from the Ohio News Photographers Association, while the The Dispatch’s sports team won six top-10 awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE).

The Dispatch performed better than any other Ohio publication in the national level APSE awards, according to Sports Editor Brian White.  The newspaper won top-10 awards for digital, print portfolio, and special section (for a package of stories about former Blue Jackets captain Rick Nash.)

A day after the campus was closed due to Winter Storm Landon, a student crosses the Oval as classes resume at Ohio State University on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022.
A day after the campus was closed due to Winter Storm Landon, a student crosses the Oval as classes resume at Ohio State University on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022.

The paper also won a special project award for a series of articles and videos by reporters Lori Schmidt, Joey Kaufman, Colin Gay, Rob Oller, Bill Rabinowitz and Adam Jardy on Ohio Stadium’s 100th anniversary, and photographer Adam Cairns won APSE awards for action photo and feature photo.

The photographers who won awards from the Ohio News Photographers Association are Cairns (pictorial: second and third place; sports picture story: first and third place), Brooke LaValley (news picture story: first place), Barbara J. Perenic (illustration: second place; portrait personality: first place; sports picture story: second place), Joseph Scheller (feature picture story: second place), Shane Flanigan (ThisWeek, news picture story: second place) and Fred Squillante (feature: first place; sports feature: third place).

Adam Cairns won the first place Ron Kuntz Sports Photographer of the Year and first place George A. Smallsreed, Jr. Photographer of the Year (large market) awards.
Adam Cairns won the first place Ron Kuntz Sports Photographer of the Year and first place George A. Smallsreed, Jr. Photographer of the Year (large market) awards.

Cairns also won the first place Ron Kuntz Sports Photographer of the Year and first place George A. Smallsreed, Jr. Photographer of the Year (large market) awards, while Flanigan won the first place George A. Smallsreed, Jr. Photographer of the Year (small market) award, and Scheller won the “Award of Excellence” (large market).

Fred Squillante recently retired from The Dispatch. ThisWeek, the Dispatch’s sister community newspaper where Flanigan worked, ceased publication on January 26.

Some photos from the award-winning photographers are included below.

Model Alyssa Alleyne-Atherly of Polaris is painted by Lynn Hetherington Becker for an on-location photo shoot on Saturday, March 5, 2022.
Model Alyssa Alleyne-Atherly of Polaris is painted by Lynn Hetherington Becker for an on-location photo shoot on Saturday, March 5, 2022.
Jose Correa of Houston rests his head as he waits for a fork lift to push a Megalodon into place in the Bricker Multipurpose Building at the Ohio Expo Center on Wednesday, January 26, 2022. As the fork lift pushed, Correa would guide the pre-historic shark. Megalodons were estimated to be 50-60 feet long and weigh an estimated 66,000 pounds. Jurassic Quest touts itself as North America’s largest and most realistic dinosaur event. The event is being held from January 28 to January 30.
Sam Campbell (left), 5, of Powell, and Charlie Skelton, 5, of Dublin, play in a pile of leaves during the Ohio Wildlife Center's Howl-O-Ween event Oct. 27 in Powell. The event allowed participants to learn about Ohio's native wildlife while trick-or-treating on the OWC's secluded 20-acre property. For more information about the center, go to ohiowildlifecenter.org.

Peter Gill covers immigration and new American communities for The Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America here:bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.

pgill@dispatch.com

@pitaarji

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Dispatch sports reporters, photographers win major awards