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ITD Communications staff claim six press club awards

The Office of Communications won six awards at the Idaho Press Club’s Best of 2011 awards competition and another at the Capital City Communicators competition. The awards were announced Saturday evening (April 28) at the annual dinners in Boise.

For the third year in a row, ITD took top honors in Public Relations News Release Writing in the Press Club competition. And for the second consecutive year ITD also swept the Feature Writing Competition, with Mel Coulter winning both first and third-place honors, and Bruce King taking second place.

ITD, including Margaret Goertz and the Office of Highway Safety, also took top honors for the Teen Driving website, and the DMV's Drivers Services and The Langdon Group was a winner for the "Central Issuance Launch" – affecting drivers licenses statewide.

Idahoteendriving.org was fully deployed last year to help support and improve the practice of safe driving among young adults and provide a means for learning safe driving skills. The site provides links, resources and informational articles for young drivers and their parents.

In summer 2011, Idaho driver’s licenses and identification cards got a new look and state-of-the-art security features to help protect drivers and card holders from identity theft and fraud. The cards were also produced in a new way to enhance security.

The change had the potential to affect every Idahoan at some point, which also meant a high level of scrutiny as the campaign was unveiled. The change also came at a time when lawmakers were struggling with budgetary issues; therefore, concern over cost was at the forefront.

The award was in large part in recognition of the high level of coordination with stakeholders at every phase to successfully roll out the campaign across the state.

The Capital City Communicators honor was an Award of Merit for feature writing, bestowed upon Coulter for an organ-donation advocacy story.