“Nisqually Valley News was named Washington’s best in General Excellence for newspapers its size during the 119th annual convention of the Washington Newspaper Publisher’s Association.

The annual award ceremony was held this past weekend in Kennewick and included awards for the top three stories in a variety of categories.

Judged by newspaper publishers from New York state, Nisqually Valley News (NVN) accumulated 464 points out of a possible 500 from five critics.

Nisqually Valley News Publisher and Editor Keven Graves attended the ceremony and accepted the award.

“Winning General Excellence is a reflection of the team effort that makes this newspaper the great community publication that it is,” said Graves.

“Everyone who works at this newspaper shares in this award.”

Graves was also elected to serve on the board of trustees for the newspaper publishers association…

In addition to being chosen the best weekly newspaper in Washington in its circulation category, individual awards went to reporters Seth Truscott, Keri Van Lue, and Cindy Teixeira.

Truscott, the most senior reporter on staff, brought back to Yelm two third place awards and one shared second place honor with Cindy Teixeira…

Teixeira’s single individual award was second place in the Best Education Story category which highlighted an art teacher’s attempt to raise math scores using art. “She obviously has her finger on the pulse of her coverage area,” said one judge.

In the Best Investigative Story category, Truscott and Teixeira took second place for covering Yelm’s mayoral race and questioning 2005 mayoral candidate Steve Klein’s residency.

“‘These reporters had to do some real digging to compare this mayoral candidate’s water usage to that of his neighbors. It makes the reader question what ‘residency’ really means,’ commented one judge,” quoting the NVN.

[Ed. Note: These reporters had to do some real digging? Really???
The facts show these reporters did NO “digging.”
To quote from their own story published in the NVN on September 16, 2005, Ms. Teixeira & Mr. Truscott reported,

Lacey residents Allan Richards and Jeff Adams contacted the Nisqually Valley News and questioned whether Klein is really a city resident. Last week, Richards provided the newspaper with a water usage report he said he obtained through a public disclosure records request. The water records are for the home that Klein bought inside of city limits last year.

Ms. Teixeira called my wife and I for an interview upon reciept of the water records to which Mr. Truscott joined.
These reporters did NO investigation, as they were handed the water records by Mr. Richards.

Further quoting the same story:
Richards said his interest in the Mayors race is based solely on the fact that he has friends living in Yelm, he visits the city alot and is concerned about what is happening here.

However, if Mr. Truscott & Ms. Teixeira had done further research, they would have discovered that the Allen Richards & Jeff Adams quoted in their report are members of a church outside of the Yelm community and Mr. Adams is actually Pastor Jeff Adams of College St. Christian Church in Lacey. Both gentlemen had written several Letters to the Editor published in the NVN critical about this writer being a student in the Ramtha School. HMMM! Real digging? What say you?]