Featured Story

Julie Lane wins PCLI award

Julie Lane wins PCLI narrative profile award.
Julie Lane wins PCLI narrative profile award.

 

Shelter Island Reporter staff writer Julie Lane took home first place honors in the category of narrative profiles at Thursday night’s  Press Club of Long Island Awards Dinner at the Woodbury Country Club.

Her winning entry was a story carried in the February 28, 2013, edition entitled, “To Russia with love,” chronicling the saga of a Shelter Island summer family who adopted a Russian orphan named Anya who was, at 5 1/2, considered too old for any family looking for a child.

Had it not been for Roxanne and John Duvivier, Anya might have been headed for a life filled with  drugs, prostitution and/or an early death. She not only found a loving family, but at 21, when the story was written, was already exploring the possibility of one day adopting her own children from a Russian orphanage.

The Press Club of Long Island, the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, announced winners in more than 80 categories of its 2014 Media Awards contest. Categories spanned daily and weekly newspapers, radio, television and web-based media.

The same story submitted for the PCLI contest won a third place feature story award from the New York Press Association at its April convention in Saratoga Springs.

Ms. Lane also took home two other New York Press Association awards in April. She won a first place Community Leadership Award for stories written about difficulties with mail service on Shelter Island and a first place award for the best news or feature series, a three-part exploration of the government of the Village of  Dering Harbor.

Ms. Lane begins her 15th year with TimesReview Newsgroup in July, having written for the Suffolk Times and News-Review before transferring to the Reporter in December 2011. Her reporting career spans almost 25 years, including working as a researcher in broadcast news and writing for daily and weekly newspapers and their related websites.