The Southern Standard came home with 11 statewide awards during a recent Tennessee Press Association banquet in Franklin, including first place honors for best headline writing and humor column.

The newspaper finished with a wide range of awards and was recognized in a number of categories, including best news coverage, best sports writing, best business coverage, and makeup and appearance.

The Standard accomplished this while competing in a division largely composed of daily newspapers because of our high circulation numbers for a non-daily paper. The Standard was lumped in the same division as other noteworthy papers as the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, the Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville, and the Jackson Sun.

“It’s always rewarding to receive recognition for our hard work,” said Standard publisher Patricia Zechman. “We may have received awards for our writing and our photography, but at the end of the day it’s all about accuracy. People want reliable and trustworthy information and it’s our commitment to provide that information for our community. You never know if what you’re reading on social media is true. We want people to have confidence in knowing the information they read in the Southern Standard is accurate.”

Longtime Standard reporter Lisa Hobbs wrote the first-place humor column in which she joked about the problems associated with growing older. “Age is just a number and mine is unlisted,” wrote Hobbs, who is no stranger to aging.

The Standard won first place for headline writing for a collection of punny headlines submitted throughout the year.

The Standard earned second-place awards for news coverage and makeup and appearance, which covers the newspaper’s overall design.

The entries were for the entire 2020 calendar year, from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. The newspaper was also recognized in a temporary category (we hope at least) devoted entirely to coronavirus coverage.