The Beachcomber brought home armfuls of awards from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association’s 2025 Better Newspaper Contest, announced on Oct. 4 at the association’s annual conference and awards ceremony in Wenatchee.

In all, The Beachcomber’s staff and contributors won 27 prizes in categories spanning community service, news, editorial, sports writing, arts coverage, photography, advertising and special sections.

In response to the wins, Beachcomber publisher Daralyn Anderson praised her staff members and colleagues for their dedication, creativity and perseverance in their work for the community.

“I’m thrilled to see these fine journalists and contributors receive these honors,” she said. “We have something very special here on Vashon.”

Impressively, The Beachcomber’s new reporter, Aspen Anderson, picked up the contest’s first-place prize for News Writer of the Year — one of three such prizes awarded to journalists in different circulation groups for their reporting from the end of April 2024 through March 2025.

The prize established a two-year streak for The Beachcomber in the category: reporter Elizabeth Shepherd won the same prize in 2024.

Aspen was nominated for the award by Alex Bruell, The Beachcomber’s former editor, for articles written during her internship and subsequent work as a freelancer at The Beachcomber last year.

These included articles investigating how Granny’s Attic manages and recycles its donations; various ways that islanders publicly showed their support for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign; efforts by Quartermaster Yacht Club members to convince King County to create a new crosswalk on Vashon; and climate-related stories including an account of islanders stranded in North Carolina following last year’s catastrophic flooding and another article detailing the plight of a couple who found refuge on Vashon after being displaced by California fires.

Aspen won two additional WNPA awards for articles written for Everett’s Daily Herald, where she also worked during the time span of the contest. These include second-place awards for a Short News Story about a house fire and a Long Feature Story about a firefighter’s cancer battle.

“I feel so honored to receive such an award for my time as an intern,” Aspen said. “But to me, it really represents the incredible effort, mentorship and time that Alex and Liz invested in developing me as a young journalist.”

Shepherd weighed in, responding to Aspen’s comment.

“The stories Aspen wrote during her internship truly shined, and she earned this prize,” Shepherd said. “Every day, working with her is an inspiration, and we are all actually learning things from her at this point.”

In the contest, judged by members of Maryland, Delaware and District of Columbia Press Association, Shepherd won first-place prizes for her comprehensive reporting on the Vashon Island School District; an education article detailing staff and program cuts proposed by the school district; and another article detailing how YouTube videos by a well-known island cleric led to controversy, a coffee boycott and pain for LGBTQ+ islanders.

She also swept the first, second and third prizes in the contest’s Arts Reviews category for her reviews of VHS productions “Ride the Cyclone” and “Trap,” and an art exhibition by Steffon Moody. She also picked up a second-place prize in the Arts Story category and a third-place prize for her editorial, “Keep Vashon top-rated.”

Mari Kanagy, a recent University of Washington School of Journalism graduate and Beachcomber freelancer also nominated for her prizes by Bruell, won a first place prize for in the Environmental Story category for her coverage of Water District 19’s water emergency in the summer of 2024.

Local artist Michelle Lassaline won first and third place prizes in the Editorial Cartoon category for her cartoons created for The Beachcomber. These prizes were notable because they were given across circulation groups, meaning that Lassaline’s work was judged alongside that of cartoonists working for much larger newspapers.

Bruell picked up a third-place prize for his news story, “A Buffalo Soldier on Vashon is finally recognized;” a second-place Sports News Story prize for “Vashon’s Lena Puz wins state wrestling championship,” the third-place Photo Essay prize for his photos of Vashon Strawberry Festival; and a second-prize for an Online Photo Essay for “A Whale of a Tale: Researchers collection skeleton of a gray whale that washed up on Vashon.”

Bruell’s oversight of The Beachcomber’s editorial pages also garnered a third-place prize in a category recognizing overall excellence on those pages.

Another notable prize — a 2nd-place finish in the prestigious “Community Service” category — was shared by Daralyn, Bruell and Shepherd for The Beachcomber’s coverage of Vashon’s LGBTQ community. The trio also nabbed a first-place prize for a topical in-paper special section for their work on Vashon’s Home and Garden Guide 2024.

Daralyn won other numerous other prizes, including a first-place prize for the cover of a special Pride section of The Beachcomber, which she shared with the section’s designer, Sharon Newman-Adjiri. The cover of the Beachcomber’s Destination Vashon, adorned with a photo by Bruell and designed by Bryon Kempf, won the third place prize in the same category.

Daralyn and designer Newman-Adjiri also won a second place awards for categories including Ad of the Year (designed for Compass/Connie Sorensen Group); Single Advertiser; Smaller than 1/2 Page; Multiple Advertiser; and Smaller than 1/2 Page Ad. They won a first-place prize for their use of clip art in The Beachcomber’s Halloween Safety Game ad, as well.