It gets more difficult each year to believe that the WBA Awards program has grown again, setting yet another record, but it has happened again! Growing by almost 100 entries from the previous year, the WBA Awards for Excellence program had 1,783 entries submitted this year. Wow! Again!
One oddity among this year’s entry totals was the relatively large number of entries that were rejected for various rules violations. Three or four a year is our normal number, but this year we rejected almost 50! And the great majority of these were because of time limit violations, either too short or too long. The rules on time limits have not changed in some years, so the committee can only conclude that entrants are not reading the rules as carefully as in years past. As we have done in the past, the committee will inform stations of which entries didn’t make it into competition after the awards are handed out in May.
In other important news from the WBA Awards Committee:
Scott Robert Shaw of the Midwest Family stations in LaCrosse has ended his many years of participation on the awards committee, where he was a stalwart. We are so grateful for his many contributions. We’ve chosen Robert Kennedy of Midwest Communications in Green Bay to take Scott Robert’s place. Medium Market News and Talk is one of our most competitive divisions, and Robert Kennedy’s WTAQ is a multiple time winner of Station of the Year. He’ll be a great addition to the committee.
This is my final year as Awards Committee Chair. We realized that the co-chair arrangement I shared for so long with Tom Bier, with both TV and radio representatives from different-sized markets, was a good model. We also realized that the awards committee has become such a huge and vital part of the WBA’s activities that the new committee chairs needed to be people who already had the clear respect of the Board. Please be sure to read the article in this issue of the WBA Newsletter announcing the (wonderful!) new Awards Committee Chairs. My term will end after the wrap up meeting after the Awards Gala on Saturday, May 6 at the Madison Marriott. I look forward to celebrating with you!
I have accepted a position of Awards Committee Chair Emeritus. For those of you who did not benefit from a traditional Catholic high school education, emeritus is a word that can be humorously translated two different ways: the first is “Won’t go away.” The second is, “Comes and goes as he pleases.” I assure you I’ll focus on the second! Thanks for ALL the support so many of you have shown to the WBA awards program. There’s nothing like it, because there’s nothing like you!
-Lindsay Wood Davis
