SLO New Times' Jeff McMahon awarded Golden Quill for second straight year.

For the second year in a row, former San Luis Obispo New Times staff writer and columnist Jeff McMahon received the Golden Quill Award from the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE). McMahon is the first writer in the history of the award to be honored for two consecutive years.

McMahon won the Golden Quills for columns he had written while employed at the San Luis Obispo New Times, a California-based AAN paper that is not a part of the New Times Inc. chain. After five years with New Times, McMahon left in April 1999 to pursue other interests.

Two other AAN columnists — Tim Redmond, executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and Richard Meeker, publisher of Willamette Week — won spots in this year’s Golden Dozen, an honor bestowed upon each of the twelve finalist entries.

ISWNE, headquartered at Missouri Southern State College, was founded in 1954 to promote high standards in editorial writing, to facilitate the exchange of ideas and to foster freedom of the press.

The Golden Quill is awarded for the top editorial piece in the non-daily field. The Golden Dozen will be featured in the summer issue of Grassroots Editor and will be officially announced July 8 at ISWNE’s annual convention.

The summer issue of Grassroots Editor is expected to be available online the second week of July at the following address: http://www.mssc.edu/iswne/pubs.htm