In case you haven’t heard, The Tidewater News earned several honors last week at the annual Virginia Press Association awards banquet, not the least being a Sweepstakes Award. This is recognition for overall excellence in design, multimedia reporting, photography and writing. There were also numerous individual honors received by people such as graphic designer Ryan Outlaw, ad director Mitzi Lusk, former staff writer Dale Liesch and former editor Gwen Albers, page designers Troy Cooper and Beth Roughton, staff writer Stephen Cowles, sports photographer Frank Davis, photographer Kate Archer, associate publisher Tony Clark and publisher Steve Stewart.

How did we do it?

You, our readers.

Sure, the ad reps, writers, design desk, editors and graphic artists did the actual work of selling and creating ads, interviewing and photographing story subjects, editing and designing pages and special sections.

But if the staff didn’t have the support of people in Franklin and the counties of Southampton and Isle of Wight, there’d obviously be no Tidewater News.

As many of you are probably aware, we operate with a somewhat limited staff so we can’t always be where needed or desired. In those instances, the we ask the public to help in providing write-ups and photos, which we’ll then get into the paper as soon as possible.

Further, the paper looks to its readers for story ideas and leads in order to make the coverage as accurate, fair and thorough as possible.

We love this community, and look forward to another year of serving you, our readers.

If we’re lucky, we may get another plaque and chicken dinner out of the deal. We hope you’ll continue to get a newspaper worth reading.