Club Coup

New Times has won eight awards in the Florida Press Club's annual Excellence in Journalism contest. Competing against daily newspapers and alternative weeklies with circulations of more than 75,000, the paper took honors in seven categories. Among them:

*For Excellence in Environmental News Writing, a package of stories by former staff writer Sean Rowe (now with the forthcoming Broward New Times) garnered first place, while a package by staffer Kirk Semple took second.

*For Excellence in Governmental News Writing, staff writer Robert Andrew Powell won a second-place award. First place went to Janet Cho of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

*Staff writer Lynda Edwards won the Excellence in Feature Writing category, for her June 5 story about the folklore of homeless children, "Myths Over Miami."

*Judy Cantor took second place in Excellence in Religion Writing for "An Unorthodox Style," a November 1996 piece about a painter who had to break with the Hasidic faith in order to pursue her art. That category was won by Juli Cragg Hilliard of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

The awards were presented this past Saturday, October 25, at a banquet in Cocoa Beach.