Pathfinder wins 2022 awards

SEELEY LAKE – The results from Montana Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Contest (BNC) are in and the Seeley Swan Pathfinder continues to be recognized as an award-winning newspaper. The Pathfinder received 14 Division 1 awards including seven first place awards. Division 1 encompasses weekly newspapers with a circulation of 1,250 or less. Though many of the awards for articles and photos were earned by Pathfinder owners Andi and Nathan Bourne, reporter Henry Netherland also garnered several wins.

Andi took a first place in the Best Editorial category for "Exercise your right to know." The editorial stated the Bourne's conviction that the Pathfinder has a responsibility to send a reporter to community meetings and to ask questions to which they feel the readership wants answers. The editorial also highlighted that individuals in the community can and should exercise their own right to attend those meetings.

Andi also received both first and third-place awards in the Mark Henckel Outdoor Writing category. Her article on wolf trapping, "Running the line between recreation and conservation," took first. One BNC judge called it "a detailed and vividly-written work" and "a piece that tells the story of dedication to the outdoors from start to finish."

Nathan Bourne received two first-place photography awards: "Citizen Fire Attack" in the Best Breaking News Photo category and "Up and Over from Helmville Rodeo" in the Best Sports Photo category.

Concerning the latter, one judge wrote, "The first and second place winners were very close, but I gave this one the nod as the lighting is a little more pleasing to the eye and the pose of the horse is very dynamic."

The Pathfinder hired Henry Netherland in September 2020. Netherland had been laid off from his current reporter job in Colorado because of COVID-forced cutbacks. Given his excellent references and unique situation, the Bournes offered him a one-year, full time position, a trial to see if they really needed a full-time employee. Ultimately, they decided having part-time reporters was a better fit for them. Netherland himself decided he preferred to live closer to his family in Chicago, Illinois.

Netherland received five awards in writing and photography categories. In an email he wrote, "I was elated to hear that I had won multiple awards for the stories I wrote in 2021 for The Pathfinder. This is the first time I've ever received any kind of award for my writing in journalism, let alone one based on statewide metrics. It made all the late nights and countless hours driving worth it. I'm incredibly proud of the work Andi, Nathan and the rest of the team have put into the publication. I'm also grateful to have been given the opportunity to write for the Seeley Lake community."

Netherland was particularly gratified to have won first place in the Best Education Coverage category, "Salmon Prairie celebrates a century of learning."

Concerning the article he said, "There was no shortage of information about the schoolhouse. But as you can imagine, attempting to cram a century's worth of information about any entity into a digestible piece under a few thousand words is quite a daunting task."

One BNC judge noted, "It's amazing that a school as small as this one is still in existence. Not only did this change my way of thinking but it also educated me on this hidden jewel in Montana."

Netherland's email concluded, "All in all I'm very proud of the experience I gained from Seeley Lake and Montana as a whole." He added, "The most important thing I learned while working at The Pathfinder is the necessity of determination and self-reliance."

The Pathfinder also once again received first place honors for its website.

Though the judges provided no comments, Nathan Bourne posits Pathfinder received the award "because our website is clean and updated weekly. While it has advertising pertinent to our area, it is not full of other clickable ads and news stories that detract from our site's content. It also gives full access to all content to subscribers, something not a lot of websites in Division 1 do."

And finally, Pathfinder designer Zoie Koostra also received first place recognition in the Best Niche Publication category. Specifically, this was for the Clearwater, Blackfoot & Swan Valleys MONTANA Visitor and Resource Guide which was inserted in the May 6, 2021 Pathfinder and also distributed through local businesses. The Pathfinder contracted Koostra to do design and layout of the 36-page publication, using content and photos supplied by the Seeley Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Committee and the Pathfinder.

Koostra was a 2018 Pathfinder summer intern whose focus was on design. The Bournes continued to contract with her on occasion to create Pathfinder ads.

The Bournes began hiring summer interns after the birth of their daughter in 2016. Originally their goal was simply to ease their own burden of non-stop reporting and give themselves a little more family time. They soon found they enjoyed working with the interns and watching them grow in their careers.

"We give them a lot of opportunities and we expect a lot from them," Andi said, "They have a lot of bylines by the end and they have covered a lot of different things. It has just been amazing because we have seen how everyone who has worked for us has learned a lot about themselves, not only on a personal level but also about their abilities as a journalist, as a photographer and as a designer."

Koostra just received a job in Houston, Texas doing graphic design and social media work. Griffen Smith (2020) will be Editor in Chief of the University of Montana Kaiman newspaper this fall. Micah Drew (2017) is working for the Flathead Beacon. He received a first and a third place Best Digital Presentation and a third place in Breaking News in this year's BNC.

Drew wrote, "I owe so much to the training and opportunities I received as an intern working with the Pathfinder. I wouldn't have made it this far into the professional journalism work if they hadn't added to the passion I have for local news. In addition, seeing the talented reporters they've worked with in recent years, and the success those journalists have achieved after their Pathfinder years cements the outsized influence a small local paper can have on the news coverage across Montana and beyond."

Another summer intern, Skylar Rispens (2019) is working at the Missoulian as an education reporter. She also garnered a first-place BNC award.

In an email, Rispens wrote, "I was fortunate that Andi and Nathan gave me so many opportunities to cover education during my summer with the Pathfinder. I learned not only how to bring important information to people from school board meetings but how to feature unique experiences that build community. That's a really important balance to strike in local journalism, and one that Andi, Nathan and everyone at the Pathfinder are experts at."

Considering the many interns she and Nathan have mentored, Andi concluded, "Watching how every one of our interns has just excelled has been really, really incredible to see."

In the overarching goal of continuing to make the Pathfinder better, the Bournes acknowledge they also expect to learn a lot from their interns.

Andi said, "They bring a fresh outlook and keep us more up to date. They bring with them things they've learned at school and they teach us different tools that we can use, different ways of writing, just different resources that are out there. That's hugely beneficial to us because we don't get to go to a lot of professional meetings to get a lot of that training. So they help us too."

MNA Better Newspaper Contest Second and Third Place Awards

Second Place Awards:

• Best Lifestyle Coverage: “National worker shortage hits home” by Henry Netherland

• Best Education Coverage: “Substitute shortage hits close to home” by Andi Bourne

• Best Feature Photo: “Snowy Walk N’ Talk” by Henry Netherland (historian Ron Cox leading a tour around Seeley Lake).

Third Place Awards:

• Best Feature Story: “Seeley Lake resident reaches new heights” by Henry Netherland

• Mark Henkel Outdoor Writing: “Lost goat finds new home in Seeley Lake” by Andi Bourne.

• Best Feature Photo: “One Last Look” by Nathan Bourne (trapper Rod Henrekin stares at a wolf from a distance).

• Best Headline Writing: Henry Netherland for community headlines “Seeley Lake resident reaches new heights,” “Local 4-H Trailblazer hopes odds will steer in her favor at Fair” and “Seeley Lake Market Spotlight: Merchant does not cut corners with his knife collection.”