BizWest wins 4 Colorado Press Association awards

NORTHGLENN – BizWest Media LLC collected four awards on Saturday during the Colorado Press Association’s awards ceremony at the Delta Hotel in Northglenn, and its recently retired managing editor, Ken Amundson, was inducted into CPA’s Hall of Fame.

The Better News Media Contest honored work done by Colorado news organizations large and small, in print and online, during 2023, and the awards ceremony closed CPA’s 146th annual convention.

Lucas High, who succeeded Amundson as managing editor in May, won two awards, taking first place for headline writing for “Sovos shareholders say Campbell’s acquisition is mm-mm-good to go” on Oct. 17, and second place for serious column writing for “BizWest says ‘goodbye’ to Twitter; here’s why” on Nov. 3. Those entries had also won first and third places, respectively, at the Society of Professional Journalists’ Top of the Rockies contest awards ceremony, which was held in May at the Denver Press Club.

Amundson and reporter Dallas Heltzell shared a first-place award for best politics reporting with “Where’s the love,” a Dec. 3 look at the ongoing political discord fraying the fabric of Loveland.

Jacob Fogg, founder of Denver-based CopperPress LLC and chief technology officer for DataJoe, a BizWest-owned company, won second place for his design of the BizWest.com website.

Amundson, a longtime Northern Colorado journalist, was one of three inductees into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, along with Albert Manzi, the former publisher of Prairie Mountain Publishing who retired in 2023; and Rosalind “Bee” Harris, who has spent the past 37 years as publisher and art director of the Denver Urban Spectrum. The three were selected by their peers for their contributions to journalism, the local media industry and their advocacy of press freedom throughout the state, according to a CPA news release.

Amundson, whose career spans 51 years, joined BizWest Media LLC in 2014, just as its Boulder County Business Report and Northern Colorado Business Report were merged to become BizWest. He had spent 25 years with Lehman Communications, working with the Loveland Reporter-Herald, Longmont Times-Call and other Lehman properties; his final position with the company at the time of its sale was as editor and general manager of the Reporter-Herald.

Amundson played a crucial role in 2008 in construction of Lehman’s $20 million printing plant in Berthoud that benefitted numerous Colorado publications including BizWest until that plant’s closure this summer. As board president of CPA in 2001, he was instrumental in advancing open-government initiatives which earned him SPJ’s First Amendment Award. He also worked for two years as general manager of Ballantine Communications’ newspaper division in Durango.

Amundson was presented his plaque by Bob Rummel, who was Amundson’s boss at a newspaper in Marshall, Minnesota, and then at the Reporter-Herald when he was hired there.

The Reporter-Herald and Times-Call were among other news organizations in the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado that received awards, including the Boulder Daily Camera, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Greeley Tribune, Berthoud Surveyor, the Nederland-based Mountain-Ear, the Niwot-based Left Hand Valley Courier, the Fort Collins-based Rocky Mountain Collegian and College Avenue Magazine, and the Lyons-based Redstone Review.

The Redstone Review was honored for general excellence in its size class, and Charlie Brennan, who has been a senior reporter at the Daily Camera for nearly 12 years, won a “news leader” award from CPA members.

A complete list of winners can be found here.