Communications Contest

Two UADA staffers earn seven writing awards from APW

By the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

LITTLE ROCK — Two University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture staffers, one retired and one current, earned seven awards at the 2024 Arkansas Press Women communications contest.

Fred Miller, who retired as science editor for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station in July 2023, won four awards, including a first place for his final project, a three-story series on bee research. The experiment station is the research arm of the Division of Agriculture.

Fred Miller, left, and Mary Hightower, right, were among the winners in this year's APW Communications Contest. (U of A System Division of Agriculture file photos)

“Having just retired, I wanted to go out on a high note so I entered the bee series because bees are a reliably popular topic,” . “People like bees as long as they’re not ‘bee-ing’ stung.”

Mary Hightower, chief communications officer, won three awards, including a first place for feature writing for a retirement tribute to Miller.

“It’s tough to write profiles about people you know, but it was a great joy to win for a story about a highly talented and respected friend and colleague, Fred Miller,” Hightower said.

Arkansas Press Women announced the winners of its annual Professional Communications Contest at an awards luncheon May 18 at The Villa Marre in Little Rock. Work produced in a variety of communications fields during 2023 was eligible to compete.

There were 310 entries from around the state including communicators from newspaper, radio and academia sectors.

There were 66 first-place winners in the Arkansas contest. They are eligible to advance to the National Federation of Press Women competition. Winners will be announced at the group’s annual conference, June 20-22, in St. Louis.

For the third consecutive year in the Arkansas contest, Dwain Hebda of Little Rock, president of Ya!Mule Wordsmiths, Inc., won the Sweepstakes Award. The award is based on a point system that factors in entry ranking and the degree of competition in a category.

Award details

Fred Miller, science editor, University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, won:

  • First Place in Information for the Media > News or Feature Releases – Multiple Releases for the series on bee research.

The stories in the series included “Researchers trace ancestry of Arkansas honeybees to original ‘colonists’,” “Molecular survey of parasite threats helps Arkansas beekeepers protect their colonies,” and “Entomologists study how colors attract wild bees to improve surveys, other research.”

Mary Hightower, chief communications officer, University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture:

Arkansas Press Women, APW, is an association of professional communicators in journalism, public information, business, education and government. To learn more about APW, visit https://arkansaspresswomen.org/.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on TX at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu.

Division of Agriculture staff score 12 awards in APW annual competition

By the U of A System Division of Agriculture

BENTONVILLE, Ark.  — Seven University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture staffers shared a dozen awards in the 2023 Communications Contest held by Arkansas Press Women.

Mary Hightower, chief communications officer for the Division of Agriculture, was presented the APW’s highest honor, the Communicator of Achievement.

Hightower is now among 15 finalists for the National Federation of Press Women Communicator of Achievement. There have been four previous winners from Arkansas: Roberta Forster, 1960, honored for her coverage of the 1957 Little Rock desegregation crisis; Charlotte Schexnayder,1970, a state lawmaker and co-owner of the Dumas Clarion; Margaret Woolfolk, 1977, journalist, attorney and historian; and Eva Marie Pearson, 2002, formerly of the Pine Bluff Commercial.

The awards were presented May 20 at NorthWest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville. Work produced in a variety of communications fields during 2022 was eligible for the competition.

Several Division of Agriculture staffers came up winners at the 2023 APW Communications Contest.

First-place winners in the APW Communications Contest are eligible to advance to the National Federation of Press Women competition if they are members of NFPW. National winners are announced during the NFPW’s annual conference  June 22-24 in Cincinnati. 

Kristin Netterstrom Higgins, Public Policy Center program associate at the Division of Agriculture won:

Mary Hightower, chief communications officer for the Division of Agriculture won:

Fred Miller, science editor of the Division of Agriculture’s Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, won:

For a complete list of the award recipients throughout the state please visit https://arkansaspresswomen.org/apw-celebrates-2023-award-winners/.

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.