www.roanoke.com

Brian Kelley

Brian Kelley, an editor on our metro desk, is the winner of this year’s Rugaber Prize (named after former publisher Walter Rugaber), awarded annually to a staff member in our newsroom whose work in the previous year “displayed, day in and day out, an intense curiosity, a depth of understanding, and an enterprising drive to discover unique and significant stories.”

Kelley, who has worked at the paper as an editor and a reporter since 1993, leads a team of seven news reporters covering Roanoke and the surrounding localities. He lives in Roanoke with his wife and two sons and volunteers for a variety of community of organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America and the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club. Before coming to

The Roanoke Times, he worked at the Daily Press in Newport News, The Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Potomac News in Northern Virginia.

When presenting him the award on Thursday, Editor Carole Tarrant noted that when it comes to journalism, Kelley embraces new digital tools while preserving the traditional standards of journalism.

“As a team leader on the metro desk, he’s an air traffic controller juggling incoming assignments, reporter schedules and demanding bosses who are forever looking for Virginia centerpieces,” she told the staff. “This intense multitasking has always been the life of a metro team leader. But in recent years, we’ve added yet another layer to this demanding job: immediacy. We, those demanding bosses, want it all now, and on multiple channels. We put a lot on the shoulders of our Rugaber winner, true, but we believe he intuitively understands the reasons why. We want it now because it needs to be now for us to survive, thrive and beat our competition.”

Kelley, never one to seek attention, was visibly touched by the recognition though he appeared slightly embarrassed by the attention at the ceremony.

In an email sent a few hours after receiving the award, Kelley thanked his colleagues for their support and well wishes and offered inspiring words about the future of journalism, despite the financial challenges of recent years.

“What has been clear to me over the past year … is that the various digital media tools are necessary and good to find new audiences and new revenue for our business to succeed. But those tools are meaningless without smart, creative and passionate people conceiving and producing the journalism that can be distributed through those multiple channels,” Kelley wrote.

“Likewise, another critical component is leadership that can communicate that connection between tools and talent. That’s where I need to do a better job in telling you that every day, every one of you — the reporters, photographers and editors who come up with story ideas and work the phones and sources for angles, the editors who catch a crucial error in copy or design a compelling page to draw in the reader, the many people now at work reorganizing and redesigning our websites — are the ones that give us a fighting chance as we try to navigate the rip current of change.”

“I survived a real rip current in 1997 off Avon in the Outer Banks. The thing of it is, after you stop panicking and let the current take you out to where the beach houses look tiny, then you have to have enough strength left to swim back to shore.”

“You all are the strength that will see us through.”

Written like a true Rugaber Award winner.

Every once in a great while, a kid — usually a Boy Scout out to earn a badge — will write the paper and share an opinion.

But the letter that arrived here today beats them all. Here it is, in all of its adorable glory:

3/27/12

From: Megan Smith

Mrs. Wilson’s Class

4902 HVM School Road

Roanoke, Va. 24018

To Whom It May Concern,

I am 11 years old and I find it hard to follow newspaper articles on politics. I am not alone. Most kids are too young to understand politics. Therefore, I’m requesting, if you don’t mind, that you add a new column to your paper called, “Kids for Kids.” I presume this will get more newspaper fans, twice as much profit, and adults will enjoy a kid’s point of view on certain topics.

Since some kids may be too young to understand politics. What we could benefit from is a popular newspaper like the Roanoke Times to spark their interest. Wouldn’t it be nice to see kids begging to get the newspaper to read the newest updates on books, video games, TV shows, movies, places and, of course, our national past-time? No, not baseball, although we could write about that, too. But, I mean, politics!

Perhaps teachers will even purchase the paper on a regular basis to use on current events for classroom discussions and to see what kids are interested in, and how they are voicing their opinions. Don’t get me wrong, your paper is interesting, but not necessarily to kids.

If this idea works, it may get kids to urge their parents into buying the newspaper. The Roanoke Times will receive, I’m speculating, a nice profit. Also with these added columns the newspaper may be able to get inspiration for the comic section. They are kind of boring.

Adult readers have much to gain from kid articles. They may want to see a kid’s movie review to know what to buy him or her for his/her birthday. If a parent needs to get their child to read more but they don’t seem interested in books, the newspaper may be just the tool a parent needs to bring back the art of reading.

Thank you for reading my opinion. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of future hungry readers could be at your fingertips. You could with just one change.

Sincerely,

Megan Smith

A newspaper-reader wanna-be

Photo by Jack Booth featured on www.chinaghosts.com, the site promoting Jeff Gammage's book on Chinese adoption.

I’m proud to say our newsroom has a small connection to journalism’s most prestigious award, the Pulitzer prize for public service.

Former Roanoke Times reporter Jeff Gammage, a James Madison Univeristy graduate, was part of a Philadelphia Inquirer reporting team that recently won that award for its coverage of violence in the city’s school system.  Along with Gammage, reporters John Sullivan, Susan Snyder, Kristen A. Graham, Dylan Purcell and Gammage spent more than a year working on the “Assault on Learning” series.

Gammage covered Franklin County from 1984-1987 before leaving for the Inquirer. I exchanged e-mails this week with him this week asking him to briefly reflect on his time here and his role in the series. Instead of rewriting a Pulitzer winner, I’ll share excerpts of his e-mail.

On his beat when he worked in Roanoke:

“The editors there were very smart, in that each reporter covered both a local beat, ie, Franklin County, and a state beat, which for me was the state prison system, and which at the time was coming apart at the seams. I always felt like I had the best beat on the paper. At the time, developers both local and outside were just beginning to discover Smith Mountain Lake, so you had this enormous influx of people, money and change into a staid, rural county that liked things just the way they had always been. It was like the California gold rush – a total, unregulated free-for-all. Franklin County didn’t even have zoning laws. The quandaries and conflicts were rich and never ending.”

“I remember — within weeks or months of my arrival – being sent to Richmond to cover the execution of Linwood Briley, a vicious mass murderer, whose death signaled that the state was going to get serious about carrying out the death penalty. The crowd outside the State Pen, demonstrators pro and con, was so shifting and potentially violent that even now, having seen some surly crowds, it stands out in my memory. What an opportunity for a 25-year-old reporter, huh? What confidence the editors showed in a young reporter – who could have completely screwed up the coverage. I learned that night that I could land in a strange city, get the story, and file it by deadline – an awakening that has always stayed with me.”

On his mentors in Roanoke:

My direct supervisor was Betty Strother, then an assistant city editor [now on the editorial page staff], who was not just a great journalist but a wonderful mentor. She had come from St. Louis, a real big-city paper, and I learned a lot from her. She was devoted to making all the stories of her staff the best they could be, however long it took. Roland Kidwell was the city editor, Frosty Landon the executive editor, Bill Warren the ME [managing editor], Rich Martin the deputy ME, all of them super people and journalists. Doug Pardue and Chuck Hite were the investigators extraordinaire — and gods to us youngsters.

His job now:

“I’m currently assigned to the Inquirer city desk as a general assignment reporter, so I write on all sorts of topics. Previously I was a staff writer on the Sunday Magazine, and a national correspondent based in Pittsburgh. After returning to Philly from Pittsburgh I wrote a book, China Ghosts, about Chinese adoption.”

 The Pulitizer-winning series:

“In 2009 I had covered racial violence at South Philadelphia High School, and as the school-violence series developed, managed to get myself embedded at South Philly for the school year. My part of the series was writing about life at one of the city’s most dangerous schools. And again, how lucky, right? That the editors here would be willing to let a reporter devote months to that work. That the new principal was willing to open himself and his school to scrutiny.”

The best moment since winning the Pulitzer:

“Geez, there have been so many moments. The win gave everybody here a lift when we really needed one, and that was great. One personal highlight was that the principal at Myers Elementary School here announced on the loudspeaker that 3rd-grader Zhao Gu Gammage’s dad had won part of a Pulitzer — she came home floating on air, carried by the attention of her friends and teachers.”

Social Media Butterfly, aka Stephanie Ogilvie, with Captain Classified from the Freelance Star in Fredericksburg.

The Virginia Press Associtaion’s annual meeting was held last weekend (April 20-21) at Hotel Roanoke. We published a story Sunday noting that journalists from The Roanoke Times/roanoke.com newsroom were recognized with 31 VPA awards, including eight first-place recognitions. If you missed it, click the link above to see a list of everyone who was recognized. I’ve posted a few of the judges comments about our below but you can read more here on the VPA Web site.

At the conclusion of the three-hour banquet, during which more than 1,000 awards were announced by veteran journalist Randy Jessee, we hosted a Superheroes of Journalism  party to celebrate the all of the winners from across the state and the work they produced. The party theme was the idea of our social media editor, Stephanie Ogilvie, who attended the banquet and the party in costume as a “Social Media Butterfly … fluttering through the hype.” You can see more photos from the party (taken by online projects editor Meg Martin who is soon leaving us) on Stephanie’s Tumblr blog. Thanks to the following newsrooms for helping to  pay for the party: The Virginian Pilot, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Lynchburg News & Advance, Freelance Star (Fredericksburg), The Washington Post, The Daily Press (Newport News) and The (Woodstock) Free Press.

As promised, a few of the judges’ comments about some of our award-winning work:

On our front page design (first place): “Eye-catching designs, not afraid to go big with a photo and use large type to throw readers into an inside page. Never a doubt what lead story is.”

On our breaking news coverage of the Virginia Tech police officer shooting (second place): “This news team knows to handle the big ones. Very solid reporting and clearly written; teems with information so nicely organized and balanced. Special kudos for the sidebars, especially the one on how the social media added noise but very little light.”

On our coverage of the Memorial Day shooting and investigation (first place, general news): “This team pulled together a raft of information in short order. And didn’t stop. Eventually it came out that the Sheriff might’ve been able to avert the killing of a woman and the shooting of an officer by following simple protocol. Great show of tenacity, clarity and focus.”