(VANCOUVER, WA) -- This year, NWPPA received a record-breaking 204 entries from 37 different utility and association members. In comparison, NWPPA received 176 entries from the same amount of members last year.
“I am super excited that this was the year that everyone kicked it up and sent in the most entries ever in the history of this communication contest,” said 2016 NIC Chair Julee Cunningham of Snohomish County PUD in Everett, Wash. “I would like to personally thank the NWPPA members who participated – their participation is what makes this annual contest the highly regarded event that it has become.”
Categories are broken up into four groups: Group A utilities having the smallest number of customers and Group D having the largest. Nine local marketing and communication 2 of 5 professionals volunteered their time to judge the entries. A complete list of the first-, second-, and third-place winners can be found at the end of this release.
In addition to the Excellence in Communication awards, NWPPA presented the 2016 Tom Hougan Award for the best overall communication effort to Clearwater Power Company (Lewiston, Idaho). Clearwater received an impressive average of 45.4 points out of 50 possible, which includes their four first-place awards (Advertising Campaign, Special Publication, Internal Communication, and Wild Card), their second-place award (Photography), and their third-place award (Annual Report). Clearwater Power Company Marketing Communications Specialist Jeff Marshall accepted the award on the utility’s behalf at the banquet.
A fun new award that NWPPA also presented at the awards banquet was the inaugural People’s Choice Award in photography. Attendees viewed all of the photography submissions at Sunday night’s opening reception and voted on their one favorite photo. Pend Oreille PUD (Newport, Wash.) won the award with its photo of Dick Shaw in the field. The same photo also won a first-place Excellence in Communication award in photography in Category A earlier in the evening.
The 2017 Excellence in Communication awards will be presented on September 19, 2017, at the Embassy Suites in Sacramento, Calif.
