Century News honored for Public Notice coverage

The Dripping Springs Century News placed in two statewide award categories at the Texas Press Association conference held in San Marcos this weekend.

The Century News’ highest finish was second place in Public Notice, which was received for Staff Reporter Madi Telschow’s coverage of the city of Dripping Springs moratorium on development.

The moratorium was announced in a public notice in the Century News on November 11, 2021. Through the contest period, which finished December 31, 2021, the Century News wrote three stories diving into the specifics of the public notice as well as the community’s reaction to it. It has also continued covering the story after the contest deadline passed at the end of last year.

“It is important for public notices to be run in the newspaper for so many reasons, and this coverage is just one example of that,” Dalton Sweat, general manager and editor of the Dripping Springs Century News said. “A few years back, the community fought off a concrete batch plant. The first discovery of that proposal was a public notice in the newspaper.”

The Century News is the official newspaper of the city of Dripping Springs, which is a designation the state requires each city to place on a qualified newspaper to show where its legal notices will be run.

“We are proud to be the official newspaper of the city of Dripping Springs,” Sweat said. “Not only do the public notices help keep our community informed about the matters of local government, but we were also able to complement that public notice with strong news coverage. It is nice to be recognized for that across the entire state of Texas.”

The Century News also placed fourth in its division for Feature Writing. Two stories were required for the features writing submission. The Century News submitted “The Cowboy Rides Away,” written by Telschow for the December 2, 2021 publication of the Century News. The story featured the last concert at Nutty Brown Cafe. The second submission was “Nice To Meet Ya: Steve Fournier,” written by Gary Zupancic for the May 20, 2021 paper. It featured Fournier, who is the Executive Director of the Burke Center for Youth in Driftwood.