Staff report

The Oxford EAGLE advertising team brought home gold from the Mississippi Press Association at its annual awards event over the weekend.

Publisher Tim Phillips said for the first time in recent history, the EAGLE advertising and design team has been recognized by their peers for winning General Excellence among all of the small dailies in the state of Mississippi during the recent advertising awards ceremony sponsored by the Mississippi Press Association, not only winning General Excellence, but also eight first-place awards, eight second-place awards, and nine third-place awards.

“It is obvious that our sales team, led by Advertising Manager Nikki Paine, along with sales representatives Delia Childers and Ross Thornton, help our advertisers present their message in a very appealing way. Graphic designers Kathy Wile and Wade Griffin are responsible for the creativity of the ads and are directly responsible for the awards that were presented Saturday.”

Paine said, “I am beyond proud of my team and honored to share these awards with them.”

Daily and weekly advertising in the EAGLE has proven to be successful for local businesses, Phillips said.

“We hope that many of our advertisers will take advantage of the VIP presentations that will be held this spring and take notice of our proven advertising success,” he said.

Awards include:

Overall

• General Excellence

1st place

• Best Advertising Section (ad staff) — Double Decker

• Best Grocery or Restaurant black and white —Paine and Kathy Wile (Back Yard Burger)

• Best Retail Ad black and white — Ross Thornton and Wade Griffin (Neilson’s)

• Best Institutional Ad black and white —Thornton and Wile (Oxford Artist Guild)

• Best Service Ad black and white —Thornton and Griffin (Sample & Poole)

• Best Financial Ad black and white —Paine and Griffin (Abbeville Bank)

• Best Single Magazine Ad — Paine and Wile (Poppa’s Wine & Spirits)

• Best Financial Ad color — Paine and Wile (Renasant Bank)

Second place

• Institutional Ad — Paine and Griffin (Oxford-University School)

• Service Ad black and white — Thornton and Griffin (Back to school)

• Best Grocery or Restaurant Ad — Griffin (Magnolia Wine)

• Auto Ad black and white — Thornton and Griffin (Dossett Big 4)

• Retail Ad color — Paine and Wile (Cat Daddy’s)

• Political Ad color — Thornton and Wile (Elect R. McCluskey)

• Small Space Ad — Paine and Griffin (Oxford Police Department)

• Series of Ads — Thornton and Griffin (Double Decker arts fest)

Third place

• Institutional Ad — Paine and Griffin (OPD)

• Financial Ad black and white — Thornton and Wile (FNB)

• Service Ad black and white — Paine and Wile (Happy holidays)

• Best Grocery or Restaurant Ad — Wile (The Corner)

• Institutional Color Ad — Thornton and Wile (National Travel and Tourism week)

• Service Ad color —Wile (Waller Funeral Home)

• Financial Ad color — Paine and Griffin (Magnolia Montessori School)

• Advertising Special Section — Ad staff (Best of Oxford)

• Small Space Ad — Paine and Wile (Hunter’s Hollow)