| Writing Award Winner As part of our commitment to professional improvement, The ByLine highlights articles honored by the 2007 AAEA Writing Awards program. This month we focus on the winner of the Regular Column category, won by Jennifer Latzke for "Common Ground: The Unsung Heroics of Dads," published June 19, 2006, in High Plains Journal. Click here to read the story.
"Each Father's Day I try to write a column for the farmer and rancher dads in our readership. Mostly, though, the column is a tribute to my own father. This year, I just started the process by listing all the chores and things my dad does around our family farm that no one else will do, and then went off on a comedic riff from there. In all honesty, my father is a gold mine of comedy, and he's happy to help me out in my professional career. I just have to keep him supplied with brownies and other various forms of refined sugar. I've been writing "Common Ground" for about five years or so now. My writing heroes are Baxter Black and Erma Bombeck, so you could say the column has hints of both in it from time to time. Basically, my philosophy is to allow our readers to take five minutes out of their routine, read something that makes them laugh or makes them think, and reminds them that there's more to life than a balance sheet at the end of the day. If they go away with a lighter heart, then my job is done." - Jennifer Latzke |
Judges' Comments:
"Fun, tender reading - with a number of laugh-out-loud lines."
The 2007 AAEA Writing Awards Program is sponsored by the AAEA Professional Improvement Foundation through a grant from Syngenta Crop Protection and Syngenta Seeds. |
