Our favorite column to write each year is when we celebrate our award-winning writers and photographers, and it is that time! Between the Keystones (awarded by the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association) and the IRMAS (awarded by the International Regional Magazine Association), eight Mountain Home writers and photographers won us eleven awards. Four IRMAS. Seven Keystones. Three for photos. Seven for stories. And one for catchy headlines.

We have been burning to brag over our photographers whose Back of the Mountain photos swept the Feature Photo category for Division V (non-daily news publications with a distribution over 5,000). Some of our main competitors are TheBurg, Bucks County Herald, and the New Pittsburgh Courier. Curt Weinhold’s “Diamonds in the Woods” in January spellbound judges with the frosty scene capped by a glittering Milky Way received honorable mention. Deb Young’s August photo capturing a tiny turtle lounging in a pink water lily won second place. And Bernadette Chiaramonte’s backlit portrait of an eight-wheel hay Speedrake, “Ready for the Second Cutting,” raked in first.

We almost swept the Personality Profile category, too. David Higgins’ cover story “Blown Away” left the judges feeling exactly that when they read about Corning glassblower Janusz Pozniak and received second place. First place went to Jimmy Guignard for “And She’s Off!” about Dawn Burlew, the first woman president of Watkins Glen International, proving he can write about more than booze and bicycles!

Speaking of booze, Terence Lane won second place for his column, Planet of the Grapes, in which he covers everything from where to get the best local sherry, making your own shrub, and the joys and trials of planning your own grapevine. Cheers to Terence!

We also cleaned up in General Feature category. Mother Earth herself, Gayle Morrow, won honorable mention for her cover story “The Importance of Good Breeding” about how heritage livestock breeds might save the world. She’s always preserving quality journalism in her efforts to educate us about conserving the natural world. In first place was Lilace Guignard with “Field to Flask.”

IRMA also bestowed an award on “Field to Flask,” a merit award in the Art and Culture Feature category. One IRMA judge said of Lilace’s poignant story of the generations that have farmed what is now Myers Farm Distillers: “I know a lot of people like the members of this family. I appreciate the writer’s ability to tell their story in a way that celebrates their commonness, while acknowledging (and simultaneously elevating) the importance of their stories.” Lilace, whose adventures with the outdoors we now publish as the column “Nessmuking About,” also won an IRMA merit award for Recreation Feature for “The Iceboat Cometh and It Stayeth,” a fascinating recounting of the finicky sport of hard water sailing on the Finger Lakes. And the title of her tale of disc golf—“Identified Flying Objects”—won an IRMA merit award for Hed & Dek.

Last but not least, David O’Reily, who retired after thirty-five prize-winning years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, won a bronze IRMA in General Feature for magazines with a circulation of less than 35,000 for “Hats Off to Christine,” about our hometown milliner who also happens to be globally famous. One of the judges commented, “A delightful feature that’s both a profile of milliner Christine Moore and a window into the aspirational world of hats. The Author immerses himself into this joyful art form, and his writing is as colourful, playful and artistic as the hats themselves.”

Thanks to all our writers and photographers for keeping our creative fire burning bright.