I am pleased to announce that the Washington, DC-Baltimore Chapter website won a 2014 APEX® Award for Publication Excellence in the category of "WordPress Sites". Information about the competition is available at https://apexawards.com/.

(Some of you may remember that we were a 2009 APEX® Grand Award Winner in the "Web & Intranet Sites; Nonprofit Small Office" category, and won a 2005 APEX® Award for Publication Excellence in the category of “Web & Intranet Site Content & Writing”.)

The Twenty-Sixth Annual Awards for Publication Excellence, APEX 2014, is a competition for communication professionals. The awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content, and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence. APEX awards of Excellence recognize exceptional entries in each of the individual categories. A total of 2,075 entries were evaluated. Of those entries, 100 APEX Grand Awards were presented to honor outstanding work in 11 major categories; and 832 APEX Awards of Excellence recognize exceptional entries in 122 subcategories.

This year, 2,075 entries were evaluated, in the following distribution:
Newsletters: 164; Magazines, Journals, & Tabloids: 493; Annual Reports: 82; Print Media: 127; Electronic Media: 169; Social Media: 103; Websites: 115; Campaigns, Programs, & Plans: 144; Writing: 367; Design & Illustration: 215; One-of-a-Kind Publications: 96. Entries came from all over the world: Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, England, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, South Africa, and the U.S. Some subcategories divided winners into for profit and nonprofit organizations and some were identified as being from a small office or one to two person effort. Many of the winning entries show that excellent work can be done despite limitations for tight budgets, limited resources, and small staff. Judges were impressed by the quality of creative ideas and concepts rather than by the expense to produce them.

A list of the winning entries will be available as a PDF: APEX 2014 Winners List (pdf) by mid June. Grand Award winners are listed by main category. Award of Excellence winners are listed within each subcategory, alphabetically by organization, or by last name for individual entrants.

Many STC members won awards of Excellence in various subcategories. I am listing a few here that I know are from STC. There are probably many others but I'm not sure which ones are current members. (Not all winners from the Washington, DC metropolitan area are currently members of STC. Here's hoping a little marketing can be done by the Society to interest these communicators in joining STC!) If you are a winner and you are an STC member, let us know so we can promote your win!

• Newsletters Electronic & Email – Rick Sapir, STC Carolina Chapter, Cary, North Carolina
• Newsletter Writing – Carol L. Larson and Valerie M. Ball, STC Willamette Valley Chapter, Portland, Oregon
• Blog Content – Kevin Cuddihy, Society for Technical Communication, Fairfax, Virginia
• One to Two Person-Produced Websites – Rick Sapir, STC Technical Editing SIG, Selma, North Carolina
• Event & Meeting Campaigns, Programs & Plans – Bonni Graham Gonzalez and Amy Christensen, Scranton Corporation, San Diego, California
• Technical & Technology Writing – Rich Maggiani, Solari Communication, Essex, Vermont
• One-of-a-Kind Custom-Published Publications – Rick O'Sullivan, Society for Technical Communication, Fairfax, Virginia

Congratulations to all winners!