The Effingham Herald won second place in hard news writing for its division at the Georgia Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest, held Friday night at Jekyll Island.

The Herald’s award was for the reporting by editor Pat Donahue on the Craig Heidt murder trial. The Herald competes in Division E, the GPA’s category for bi-weekly and tri-weekly publications.

“We purposefully limited the number of contest entries we had this year,” Donahue said. “The time and expense dedicated to putting the contest packages together was getting to be too much. We’re gratified that other newspaper professionals appreciated the level of reporting and the time and effort we put into telling the tale of this tragic episode.”

“I’m proud of the job Patrick and Calli Arnold did to make sure that our readers were presented the facts as they were discovered,” said Herald Publisher Karen Tanksley. “It takes a lot of dedication to cover this type of story with such a small news staff and I’m glad that they were recognized for their hard work.”