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Community Corner

Patch Wins L.A. Press Club Awards In First Year Online

Rancho Santa Margarita editor Martin Henderson scores first- and third-place finishes for best sports writing. A Patch team in the San Gabriel Valley also wins a first-place award, and Patch's coverage of the Seal Beach shootings captures third place.

Colleague Martin Henderson, the former sports writer who became local editor for Rancho Santa Margarita Patch, still knows how to work a ball game.

Henderson scored Patch's first award in Orange County when he was named a winner Sunday night at the 54th Los Angeles Press Club Southern California Journalism Awards at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in L.A.

Presented by actors Susan Blakely and Ernie Hudson, Henderson won twice in the same category, pulling down first place for a game story about Tesoro High's football playoff victory over Servite, and third place for a commentary about Santa Margarita Catholic High football coach Harry Welch winning his third State Bowl Championship in six years with three different teams.

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  • First place, Online Sports:
  • Third place, Online Sports:

"It's gratifying to take something like Tesoro's victory, this epic victory for the school, and do it justice," Henderson said.

Entries were judged by press clubs from other areas around the country, who said of Henderson's winning entry: "Great lead, excellent build-up to the punchline with good use of context; excellent writing that really captured the excitement of the game."

Find out what's happening in Laguna Niguel-Dana Pointwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Patch's coverage of the Seal Beach salon shootings also won kudos, with Seal Beach editor Paige Austin and Belmont Shore editor Nancy Wride taking third place in Best Online News Story for their profile of suspected killer Scott Dekraai.

  • Third place, Best Online News:

Austin and Wride, along with Patch editors Jenna Chandler, Sarah de Crescenzo and Henderson, were also finalists in the Online Investigative News category for their overall coverage of the shootings.

  • Finalist, Best Investigative News:

"What makes me so proud of the Seal Beach coverage is that it was a team effort in every way," Henderson said. "For a news organization that was less than a year old, we showed that we could compete with the old media that had more resources to throw at a big story. It was one of those weeks where we came of age."

The winning effort in the online news category came from a team of 13 Patch editors in the San Gabriel Valley and northeast Los Angeles who covered the wind storm of Nov. 30 that caused unprecedented destruction and power outages in the foothills and northeast Los Angeles.

Rich Kane, the local editor for Laguna Beach Patch, was a finalist for Best Online Multimedia Package, which was particularly impressive given the Los Angeles competition. His story was about Laguna Beach's role in the LSD culture.

  • Finalist, Best Online Multimedia Package:

There were more than 90 categories and a record number of entries, about 750, in this year's event, which honored the family of slain reporter Daniel Pearl and the investigative team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Woodward appeared via the Internet, and Bernstein was at the ceremony. He received his President's Award from actors Martin Sheen and Pauley Perrette.

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