COLUMBIA — David Moody and Kasie Strickland, staff writers for The Easley Progress and The Pickens Sentinel, collected awards from the S.C. Press Association this past weekend during the annual awards luncheon that brought staff from the state’s best weekly papers together.
Strickland won First Place and Best of the Best in the 2-3 Times Weekly Division for three columns that appeared in The Easley Progress titled “Everyone remembers where they were,” “When not knowing is the hardest to endure” and “No gender issues here with my son and his doll.”
The judges’ comments lauded Strickland for her personal columns, saying that “Personal columns that keep one reading — column on autism especially well done. Nice work!”
As most readers have discovered, Strickland has a way with bringing the reader into her world, through her experiences as a mother, a wife, the mother of an autistic son, the mother of a newborn and as a person.
Strickland also placed third in the Humor Column Writing category of the 2-3 Times Weekly Division for three columns that appeared in The Easley Progress: “Chocolate sprinkles have been officially banned from my house,” “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” and “Time to take down the Michigan State flag.”
Moody won second place in the Weekly Under 4,500 Division for three columns that appeared in The Pickens Sentinel: “Genetics can’t lie,” “Be kind to those around you” and “Goodbye not an easy road.”
Moody’s columns are also peeks inside his life, at his family, his children, his friends and the world around him and often let readers inside struggles we all face, like the death of a family member in “Goodbye not an easy road.”
Regional Editor Patricia M. Edwards expressed how proud she was of them both.
“David and Kasie are both awesome writers when it comes to news and covering what needs to be covered in Pickens County,” she said. “But their columns are several notches above what one would expect from papers this size. I couldn’t be more proud of both of them.”
