Call Newspapers won two first-place awards in the Missouri Press Foundation’s 2007 Better Newspaper Contest.

The Green Park Call was awarded first-place honors for Best Front Page and Best Editorial Page in the contest, which was judged by members of the Kansas Press Association.

This is the ninth consecutive year the Call has been honored by its peers in this annual statewide competition.

The awards were presented Sept. 8 during the Missouri Press Association’s 141st annual Convention and Trade Show at the Sheraton Westport Lakeside Chalet.

Regarding the Call’s first-place honor for Best Front Page, judges wrote: “Excellent color. Five or six Page-1 stories with excellent headlines and well-written ‘Inside the Call’ and ‘Insider’ helps readers find them. The ‘Name This Tune’ — and win a classified ad — is an excellent idea.

“Type is easy to read and headlines are complete. The design is different in each paper! There were lots of good papers, but this one does everything right.”

Regarding the Call’s first-place award for Best Editorial Page, judges wrote: “This award is given because of strong, local content. Editorials that take stands on issues. Layout could be revamped to make pages less gray.”

“Winning anything is an honor among the newspapers statewide; two first-place awards is stunning,” Call General Manager Bill Milligan said. “But I have to admit they are well-deserved. Our staff works awfully hard every week to produce an excellent product and it is wonderful to be so highly rewarded by our peers.

“It is especially nice to read the judges’ comments about our headline writing because I know how hard Executive Editor Mike Anthony works to make them part of the story,” he said. “Public participation on our editorial page has always been one of the hallmarks of our effort and it is gratifying to know that judges can see it in our work. It is nice that some journalists still believe in words and ideas instead of those who put form over function.”