Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Outdoor Indiana magazine honored by national peers

The DNR Division of Communications earned four awards for its magazine, Outdoor Indiana, at a recent Association of Conservation Information (ACI) conference. 

ACI is a non-profit organization of natural resources communicators. Members represent state, federal and Canadian wildlife conservation and parks and natural resource agencies as well as private conservation organizations.

Outdoor Indiana magazine itself, overall, earned third place in the nation in the annual contest. 

The magazine’s calendar, which appears in every November-December issue, earned second place in the nation in the calendar category. 

Senior writer Nick Werner earned second place in the “Magazine Destination, Historical or Cultural Article” category for an article on Indiana’s waterfalls. The article, titled “737 and Counting,” appeared in May-June 2017. 

Staff photographer Frank Oliver’s photo of a Skamania steelhead earned third place for photography. The photo ran as the June photo for the 2018 calendar. The fish is shown jumping the sea lamprey barrier on Trail Creek in Michigan City, Indiana.

The rest of the Communications staff who works on the magazine includes Marty Benson, managing editor; John Maxwell, photographer/writer; Erin Hiatt, graphic designer; Jessica Sparger, business manager; and Amy L. Guyer, subscriptions manager. Former DNR Communications director Phil Bloom, who retired in Sept. 2017, served as editor for the issues submitted for review.

For the overall magazine award, the DNR submitted two issues, July-August 2017 and May-June 2017. Each issue is a collaborative effort that also includes contributors from outside the DNR Division of Communications. Outside contributors for those issues were Roger Hedge and Andrew Reuter of the Division of Nature Preserves; Jill Vance of the Division of State Parks; and former DNR employees Sarabeth Klueh-Mundy, former herpetologist with the Division of Fish & Wildlife, and Benjamin Hess, formerly of the Division of Nature Preservers.

Outdoor Indiana publishes six times a year. Subscriptions are $15 for one year (six issues, a 27 percent savings) and $28 for two years (12 issues, a 42 percent savings). Subscribe at OutdoorIndiana.org or by calling (317) 233-3046.

To view all DNR news releases, please see dnr.IN.gov.

                                                            

Media contact: Marty Benson, DNR Communications, 317-233-3853.