SPJ Colorado Pro chapter president Dennis Huspeni, left congratulates Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Dave Philipps of The (Colorado Springs) Gazette, who received the Journalist of the Year award at the Top of the Rockies Awards presentation.
What a fantastic night at the Denver Press Club Friday for the SPJ Region 9 Top of the Rockies journalism competition Awards reception. Congratulations to all the winners (all 450 of you!) Here the results in an Excel file. judgments-results-528.1395761152
We will mail certificates to you folks who couldn’t make it (hopefully in the next week). Thanks to everyone for making it a great contest.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Dave Philipps of The (Colorado Springs) Gazette received the Journalist of the Year award Friday from the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
The award was one of four special honors announced at the chapter’s annual awards ceremony at the Denver Press Club. The contest awards went to journalists in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Philipps won the 2014 Pulitzer on April 14 for his series “Other Than Honorable” that examined how soldiers injured during war were being discharged with no benefits. The SPJ award was for the same stories which were published in The Gazette in May 2013.
“Dave Philipps would be the first to tell you there are many others deserving of this award. But his work exemplifies the best of what we all endeavor to do,” said Jim Anderson , news editor Denver’s AP bureau and Colorado Pro board member.
“As the Gazette put it in an editorial on Dave’s work: ‘Philipps is just the latest in a distinguished line of reporters proving that investigative journalism is alive, well and in demand. … When the Pulitzer Committee chooses the best in mass communication, it looks for examples of research and storytelling that expose truth and bring about constructive public policy,” Anderson said. “Dave Philipps has done just that.”
7News received the SPJ First Amendment Award for the Denver TV station’s ongoing series titled “Contrary to the Public Interest” about problems with Colorado’s open records laws.
“It was an ambitious, and important, project. During months of investigations, Channel 7 found that — while Colorado’s open records laws are supposed to keep government officials accountable — getting documents can mean paying huge fees or becoming tangled in expensive legal battles,” said Cara DeGette, board member.
SPJ’s Keeper of the Flame Award, which recognizes a distinguished career in journalism, went to Westword editor Patty Calhoun.
“Westword, which started 37 years ago as a feisty alternative newspaper, is now a journalistic institution and a respect member of Denver’s media landscape,” said Gil Asakawa. “Patty Calhoun, one of the founders, is the editorial vision behind Westword, and has trained dozens of journalists — like me — on the job.”
Colorado Mesa University assistant professor Eric Sandstrom received the SPJ Journalism Educator of the Year Award.
Sandstrom was cited for his contributions to the school’s journalism program as faculty adviser to the campus newspaper and for his work in the classroom. He also was instrumental in establishing a student SPJ chapter in 2012 at the Grand Junction university. Prior to joining CMU in 2007, Sandstrom worked at newspapers in Ohio, Illinois and Nebraska and taught at Kent State University and Cleveland State University.
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Colorado Pro Chapter -- Society of Professional Journalists 
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