Charity Robey wins first place press association award
Charity Robey, columnist and feature writer for your hometown newspaper, was honored by the New York Press Association, winning first place for columns at NYPA’s annual convention in Albany this past weekend.
Ms. Robey’s column, “On the Half Shell” was awarded top honors in one of the most competitive categories in NYPA’s “2017 Better Newspaper Contest.”
This year, the judges looked at entries representing the work of 184 newspapers in a variety of circulation divisions across New York State.
Ms. Robey’s columns were singled out by one judge for “the way she sees things — and puts it into print.”
In 2017 Ms. Robey cast her eye on everything from the chores associated with the changing of seasons on Shelter Island to a trip to Slovenia “with an urge to better understand a presidential spouse about whom I have questions. Many questions.”
Making the reader laugh and think, Ms. Robey spun gold out of simple Island pleasures, such as attending a yard sale, opening that column: “It’s yard sale season on Shelter Island. Spare me that tired line about paying good money for someone else’s junk. And I scoff at your environmental piety when you say, ‘It’s good to recycle old things.’ And as for yard sales being the best way to find a bargain? Ridiculous. Everyone knows that an Island yard sale is entertainment.”
The press association seems to favor Reporter columnists. Ms. Robey’s win means that the left column of page nine has taken top honors the last three years in a row.
And speaking of that page and column, turn to page nine in the Reporter’s print edition this Thursday for an On the Half Shell column, and page three for an Island profile, penned by our first place winner.
