The Bethlehem Press received the Reader Initiative Award for The Press 18th Annual Student Poetry Project in the 2024 Keystone Media Awards Contest Specialty Category.

The award was won across all circulation divisions for newspapers statewide in Pennsylvania for work published in 2023.

The announcement of the winners was made June 19 on the Pennsylvania News Media Association website.

Listed on the award are: Paul Willistein, Lehigh Valley Press Focus editor; George VanDoren, Student Poetry Project adjudication committee chairman, and Ann E. Michael and Shirley M. Daluisio, committee members.

VanDoren is a retired Bethlehem Area School District English teacher. Michael is a published poet and a retired assistant director, Writing Center, DeSales University. Daluisio is a retired Bethlehem Area School District teacher.

Photos of the top three student poets and their poems in the high school, middle school and elementary school categories are published on the Focus front page. An additional six poems in the three categories are published in the Focus section.

The winning poems are published in the Focus section of the eight Lehigh Valley Press print newspapers and websites: East Penn Press, Salisbury Press, Bethlehem Press, Parkland Press, Northwestern Press, Whitehall-Coplay Press, Catasauqua Press and Northampton Press.

The 18th Student Poetry Project was published in the April 26, 2023, Focus section. The Focus pages were entered in the Reader Initiative Award contest.

In addition to having their poems published, students were able to read their poems and be interviewed by VanDoren and Willistein on the Lehigh Valley Public Radio Station, WDIY, “Lehigh Valley Arts Salon,” broadcast April 24, 2023, in advance of the Student Poetry Project publication date.

The 18th annual Student Poetry Project was announced Jan. 18, 2023, on the Focus section front page with entry information published weekly through March 8, 2023, for the March 15, 2023, poetry submissions deadline.

The committee of educators, professors and published poets selected poems to be published from hundreds of elementary, middle and high school entries.

The Student Poetry Project was promoted on WDIY and its website.

Photos of the top three student poets and the Poetry Project committee in the WDIY studios were published in the April 26, 2023, Focus section.

The mission of the Student Poetry Project, which commemorates “National Poetry Month” in April, is to improve literacy, encourage an appreciation of poetry, provide a school classroom instruction module, and involve students, families and teachers in newspaper readership.

The Press Student Poetry Project received a 2018 Keystone Media Award and a 2010 Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Foundation Award.

Here’s the link to the 2024 Keystone Media Specialty Award Winners list:

https://panewsmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/Awards/Keystone_Awards_Professional/2024_Winners_Keystones/2024-Keystone-Media-Specialty-Award-Winners.pdf