Category Archives: Touchstones

Touchstone Entries are Now Open

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For more information, click here for our entry form!!

You’ve done great work and we want to see it!! Each year, the Press Club of Toledo honors the best of journalism and community service in our area at the Touchstone Awards. This year, we have expanded the number of journalism categories to recognize even more of the excellent work produced in the Toledo region. We invite you to enter your work!!

An independent panel of judges will be evaluating stories from newspaper, radio, TV and internet journalists, as well as a new category for PR campaigns.

The 2021 Touchstone Awards Call for Entries is here (2021 Touchstone Awards Call for Nominations). It’s easy to enter and there’s no limit to the number of entries you can submit, but you must not delay! The deadline to enter this year’s Touchstones will be August 30, 2021!

Our 23rd annual Touchstone Awards Ceremony will be held on October 21 at the Toledo Club, with Dr. Nicole Kraft (author of “Always Get the Name of the Dog”) as guest speaker. In the meantime, please look over your work published between June 30, 2020 and June 30, 2021 and submit your best!

We will look forward to celebrating your journalism contributions at our 23rd annual Touchstone Awards

The 2020 Touchstone Awards are in the books

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Well, it wasn’t the event we expected to have at the beginning of the year, but we put the 2020 Touchstone Awards into the books nonetheless.

Thank you to the 82 people who attended our virtual event. We appreciate your support so much.

Also, we thank our generous sponsors who supported the event. Because of their support in these unusual times, we were able to increase the scholarships to $1,000. We were happy to give the good news at the event to Kennedy Ellison of the University of Toledo and Shayne Nissen of Bowling Green State University.

2020 Touchstone Winners

Lifetime Achievement Award

Bob Savage, Sr.

Golden Touchstone

Dick Berry

Mary Alice Powell

Contributor Award

Dr. Romules Durant

Wendi Huntley

Print Daily Hard News

Blade Corona Virus Coverage

Print Daily Feature

Precious Fondren, The Blade

Print Daily Sports

Dave Briggs, The Blade

Print Non-Daily Hard News

The Press Newspaper

Print Non-Daily Feature

Jason Webber: Dooley Noted, Toledo City Paper

Photojournalism Videography

Todd Gaertner, WTVG

Photojournalism Print

Kurt Steiss, The Blade

Television Hard News

Brian Duggar, WTOL

Television Feature

Alexandra Kruger BCAN

Television Sports

Claire Dau, BCSN

Radio, Single Report

Brad Creswell WGTE

Radio Show/Series

Brad Creswell WGTE

Podcast

Haley Taylor, WGTE

Social Media

In the Loop WTOL

Digital Media

WTOL Instagram

Student Television

Chase Bachman

Student Print

Riley Runnels

Public Relations Campaign

Thread Marketing Group

Register for Virtual Touchstone Awards, October 21

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The 2020 Touchstone Awards!
A Toledo Press Club Virtual Event

October 21, 7:00 PM (RSVP pressclub@bex.net for login instructions), free for members and non-members alike.

The Touchstone Awards are the highlight of our year at The Press Club of Toledo.  It’s our chance to honor people who make a difference in this community, whether that’s in the field of community service or in journalism and communications.

We can’t meet in person this year, but we have taken our event virtual.  We’ll be honoring our lifetime and community winners and announcing our winners in the journalism and communication fields, as judged by the Press Club of Salt Lake City.

We hope you will join us.  As we did with Pressing Issues, please RSVP to the address above and we’ll get you login instructions.  Feel free to share this with anyone…thanks to our generous sponsors above, the event is free and open to all.

Touchstone Contributor: Dr. Romules Durant

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The Press Club is proud to honor Dr. Romules Durant with a Touchstone Contributor Award. This award is given to a member of our community who has made a significant contribution to our region in the past year.

Dr. Romules Durant serves as the Superintendent and CEO of Toledo Public Schools, the fourth largest urban school district in the State of Ohio. On the afternoon March 12, Governor Mike DeWine announced the closure of all schools in the state of Ohio beginning on March 16. With just four days to plan, Dr. Durant made the decision to close the schools and pivot to a 100% learning environment. Realizing that TPS has more than 23,000 families, Dr. Durant established many innovative ways to continue to serve the students of TPS while removing barriers to learning. Some examples include using the school bus fleet to park in underserved areas for community use of Wi-Fi, distributing 8,000 Chromebooks to students who had no access to technology, leveraging partnerships to get internet access for students in need and providing grab and go breakfast and lunch daily for all children in need, not just TPS students.

As graduation approached, Dr. Durant expressed that it was important for him to do his best to make this year’s commencements memorable for the class of 2020. Not only did TPS host virtual graduations for all 10 high schools separately, they hosted 10 drive through graduations for families who were comfortable to come out and receive their diploma. Dr. Durant also learned of a graduate that would be deployed on the day of the drive through commencement, he decided to deliver the diploma to his home in a surprise pop-up at his home.

Aside from COVID related innovation, many other accomplishments occurred under Durant’s leadership in the 2019-20 school year.  TPS moved up a letter grade in the state report card, he has led and successfully passed two levy campaigns, opened Escuela Smart Academy- a bilingual school for students and the Aerospace and Natural Science Academy, Jones Leadership Academy of Business, two new STEMM Academies and established countless partnerships for the benefit, growth and development of TPS students.

Dr. Durant is a proud graduate of the Waite High School Class of 1994 and is truly TPS Proud.

Touchstone Contributor Award: Wendi Huntley

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The Press Club is proud to honor Wendi Huntley with a Touchstone Contributor Award. This award is given to a member of our community who has made a significant contribution to our region in the past year.

Wendi Huntley is the Executive Director of Connecting Kids to Meals, an organization that provides vital nutrition to children in our region.

On March 12, when Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced the temporary closure of all K-12 schools, the rug was pulled out from under many kids and families.

For many, lunches that are normally provided during in-person school days were the only meals they would receive all day. These kids count on eating at school.

Under Ms. Huntley’s leadership, Connecting Kids to Meals responded in this hour of need, providing food kits for kids to get them through remote school weeks. Approximately 5,000 students participated in weekend meal pick-ups each week.

The Press Club thanks Wendi Huntley for her contributions to this region.