Boerne Star earns 6 TPA awards

The Boerne Star brought home a haul of hardware over the weekend as the newspaper earned six awards at the Texas Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper Contest.

The competition among the state’s newspapers culminated in more than a year of work and covered published entries from Sept. 1, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2021. The winners were announced during Saturday’s brunch at the TPA’s annual convention in San Marcos.

In all, about 850 entries were submitted in several divisions and categories.

Star Managing Editor Keith E. Domke received four TPA awards while Sports Editor Kerry Barboza got two. The Star competed in the semiweekly category.

“Entries in each category are judged together as a sample representing the overall quality of the newspaper’s work,” information from the TPA stated.

This year, the entries were judged by members of the West Virginia Press Association while Texas Press Association members judged the WVPA contest.

Domke’s awards included a first place for column writing, a second place for feature photography, a third place for editorial writing and a fourth place for headline writing. Barboza earned third place in overall sports coverage and fourth place in sports photography.

Domke’s first-place award centered on his weekly “Coffee with Keith” column which appears in Friday’s Star but soon will move to the weekend when the newspaper switches to a Wednesday-Saturday format later this month. He submitted columns written about the significance of people having special nicknames and the 20-year anniversary of 9/11.

The judges called the columns “heartwarming.”

Both photography awards were judged on the overall quality and presentation of the submitted pictures, while the sports coverage award was based on Barboza’s coverage of local athletics. Domke’s editorial and headline awards were judged on the writing and presentation of both.

Barboza’s two awards this year bring his career total to about 25. Domke’s four awards give him 59 over his career which includes a Pulitzer Prize nomination.