From left, Nick Ruxton, Brenda Capen, and Madeline Pillow display awards at UMAC.

Virginia Conference Communications office staff wins six UMAC awards

By Madeline Pillow

The Virginia Conference Communications office brought home six awards at the denomination-wide communications/media awards contest held during the annual meeting of United Methodist Association of Communicators (UMAC), Mar. 22-24 in New Orleans, La.

The Virginia United Methodist Advocate won a first place award in the magazine category of the Print Publications class which includes the teamwork of Editor Madeline Pillow, Graphic Designer Cathryn Huff and Database Manager Brenda Capen as copyeditor. 

Award-winning photo by Madeline Pillow.

Advocate Editor Madeline Pillow won third place in the portrait category of the Photography class for her shot of Bishop Sharma Lewis and Shirley Cauffman during the assignment of Bishop Lewis to Virginia at Southeastern Jurisdictional in July 2016. 

Nick Ruxton and Madeline Pillow won third place for the video series “A Day in the Life.”

Award-winning photo by Nick Ruxton.

Nick Ruxton, conference videographer, won second place in the portrait category of the Photography class for his shot of Bishop Cho at Annual Conference 2016. As well he won first place for “2016 tornado recovery: Waverly, Virginia,” a video that depicted the relief and recovery efforts of the Virginia UMVIM following the Feb. 24, 2016 tornadoes in Virginia. 

Ruxton and Brenda Capen also won third place for the blog “Through the Lens.” All the awards may be viewed on the conference website and were shared on the conference Facebook page the week of Mar. 27.

Over 100 communicators from across the United States participated in The United Methodist Association of Communicators 44th annual meeting in New Orleans.

-Madeline Pillow is editor of the Advocate.