The Chronicle earned 13 awards in the 2025 Better Newspaper Contest – an executive editor Erin Tierney-Heggenstaller was honored in several categories including Best News Story and Best Online Breaking News Coverage.
The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association conducts the annual contest. The Chronicle has won more than 100 awards since 2019, when The Creswell Chronicle was purchased by Noel and Denise Nash. Tierney-Heggenstaller joined the ownership group in 2024.
The contest includes Oregon, Washington, and Idaho – and this year’s entries were judged by editors with the New Jersey state journalism organization. While winners were announced for each category, the actual 1-2-3 finish will be announced at the ONPA summer conference at the end of July.
“The individual honors are nice, but I’m thrilled to see our reporters and photographers receive so much recognition,” Tierney-Heggenstaller said. “We’ve also upgraded our website considerably and it seems the judges were impressed. We hear the same from our readers.”
An overview of the awards:
- General Excellence
- Best Feature Story: “The Bookmine turns 50” by Ron Hartman
- Best Lifestyle Coverage: “Spirit’ jumpstarts festival’s heartbeat: BMD reemerges with new leadership, year-round Itinerary” by Erin Tierney-Heggenstaller
- Best Sports Story: “Grieving, growing” by McKenzie Days
- Best Spot News Coverage: “Juanita‘s Story” by Tierney-Heggenstaller
- Best Spot News Coverage: “Senior Center closes” by Tierney-Heggenstaller
- Best Writing: “ICE Raids,” “Mining Days,” “Eternal Optimism” by Tierney-Heggenstaller
- Best Government Coverage: “The rise and fall of Flock cameras” by Ashlin Sanderson
- Best Feature Photo: “Fireworks and baseball” by Bob Williams
- Best Photo Essay: “Winter LIghts” by Craig Strobeck and Bob Williams
- Best Sports Photo: “Tears of Joy” by Craig Strobeck
- Best Overall Website: Tierney-Heggenstaller
- Best Online Coverage of Breaking News: “Juanita’s Story” by Tierney-Heggenstaller
- See all of the contest results at orenews.com/
