Bay State Parent Wins 2007 Sword of Hope Award

Bay State Parent magazine won honored with a 2007 Sword of Hope Media Award from The American Cancer Society, New England Division last night. Freelance Writer Trish Reske of Westborough was the winner of the award in the freelance category. Her April 2006 article on women, who had battled cancer and then gave birth to a child entitled Conceiving after the Inconceivable was submitted into the bi-annual competition by Editor Susan Scully Petroni. Reske, her husband David, and Petroni attended the awards dinner held last night, May 16 at Harvard University’s Faculty Club in Cambridge. The 2007 Sword of Hope award covers print and broadcast journalism published or broadcast during 2005 and 2006. The 15 award winners represent 13 news organizations based in Massachusetts, Maine, and Connecticut.
“Reske wrote a very emotional and uplifting article for Bay State Parent,” said Petroni. “She deserves to be honored for her writing and for the hope she gave many of our readers who have or are battling cancer.” Read the award-winning article online at: www.baystateparent.com/news/2006/0401/Articles/024.html
The judges for the 2007 American Cancer Society Sword of Hope Awards were: Ann LoLordo, deputy editorial page editor at The Baltimore Sun; Garland Waller, associate professor of television at Boston University; David Galletly, vice president at WAMC/ Northeast Pubic Radio, Albany, New York; and K. Viswanath, PhD, associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health, and a researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
This is the second time Bay State Parent magazine has been honored with this award. Freelance writer Stacy Juba won in 2005, for an article on skin cancer facts.
Thus far this year, the magazine has won 29 awards. In fact, Bay State Parent has won 75 awards since changing our name to Bay State Parent from Today's Parent three years ago. We truly are Massachusetts' Premier Magazine for Families.
Established in 1974, the American Cancer Society’s Sword of Hope Awards pay tribute to the essential role of the news media in raising public awareness of cancer, deepening the understanding of cancer, and ultimately saving lives.
Other 2007 award winners were:
* In the Daily Newspaper, circulation over 50,000, category, Irene Sege of the Boston Globe won for “Wednesdays with Perry and Jay,” a feature story following breast cancer survivor Perry Colmore as she provided emotional support to newly diagnosed breast cancer patients.
* In the Daily Newspaper, circulation under 50,000, category, the Fairfield Citizen-News won the award for an article entitled “Two-Time Cancer Survivor Urges Young Mothers Not to Wait to Get a Mammogram” by Michele Hermann.
* In the Weekly Newspaper category, Boston’s Bay State Banner tied with The Forecaster of Falmouth, Maine. In the Bay State Banner, Karen Miller’s “Be Healthy” section won, along with Mo Mehlsak’s story about colon cancer prevention and detection in The Forecaster.
* In the Radio category, WBUR-FM, Boston, won for Allan Coukell’s piece entitled “New Lung Cancer Test,” tied with WNPR-FM in Hartford, with “The Mystery of Breast Cancer,” produced by John Dankosky, George Goodrich, and Evette Cooke.
* In the Magazine/Periodical category, The Women’s Times of Great Barrington, won for their “Guide to Breast Cancer Resources.”
* WFXT Fox 25 in Boston won in the Television News/Feature Story category for “Fenway First Pitch” by Butch Stearns.
* The Local Cable Access award went to Community Vision 21 in Newtown, Connecticut, for the Charter Communications program “In Your Community,” produced by Dave King.
* In the Continuing Overall Effort category, there was a tie between WCSH6 in Portland, Maine, for their “Buddy to Buddy” program, and the Connecticut Post for Meg Barone’s series of cancer articles.
* A special Judges’ Award was given to the Sunday Republican of Springfield, for “Where Hope Dwells” by Ronni Gordon.