Dana Hunsinger Benbow of the IndyStar won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2021 contest in the Division B Breaking News category for her January article about bullying and mental abuse allegations inside Purdue-Fort Wayne women’s basketball.

Hunsinger Benbow will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2022 APSE Summer Conference banquet at The Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis on June 18.  Click here to register for the conference.          

Joel Currier and Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch finished second, and Brian Davis of the Austin American-Statesman took third.                                                                                               

Sports editors in Division B submitted 69 Breaking News entries. 

Contest chair Jorge Rojas and fellow APSE officers Gary Potosky, Naila-Jean Meyers and Ed Reed prepared the entries. The contest is open to APSE members.

Click here to join.

In February, judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10 on a separate ballot. Entries were given 10 points for a first-place vote, nine points for second and so on down to one point for a 10th-place vote. The final 10 were given to a second judging group, which ranked the entries 1-10 in the same fashion. 

The final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.

The winner in each category will receive a plaque at the summer conference. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.

The top 10 is listed below with voting results and links to the winning entries.

1. Dana Hunsinger Benbow, IndyStar (Indianapolis), 48 points (2 first-place votes)

2. Joel Currier and Ben Frederickson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 45 points (2 first-place votes)

3. Brian Davis, Austin American-Statesman 39 points, (1 first-place vote)

4. Vincent Bonsignore, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 38 points

5. C.L. Brown, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 37 points (1 first-place vote)

6. Scott Fowler, The Charlotte Observer, 32 points

7. Andy Larsen and Eric Walden, The Salt Lake Tribune, 26 points

8. Matthew VanTryon, IndyStar (Indianapolis), 25 points

9. Bill Bush and Bailey Johnson, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 21 points

10. Aaron Falk, The Salt Lake Tribune, 19 points

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