NEW BERN — Columnist Joe Weaver has another award to add to his wall.
Weaver recently placed first in the Best Humor Column category through the National Newspaper Association Foundation’s Better Newspaper Contest.
The winning entry, submitted by The Wilson Times, ran in that paper as “Snappy comebacks to dumb questions” and in the Richmond Observer as “Dealing with the dumb.” (Each editor generally writes their own headline for the column.)
“Continuous laughter is what I had when I read this column,” read the judge’s comments. “It showed good humor from beginning to end and I would read this writer again.”
Weaver said Wednesday that he was “stunned” by the news and thanked the NNA and the readers on his Facebook page.
This is Weaver’s second award for his recurring column.
He placed third in Lighter Columns in the North Carolina Press Association’s 2017 Editorial Contest, also for The Wilson Times. In that contest, three selections are combined for one entry.
Weaver has been writing for nearly six years, after expressing to Corey Friedman a longtime interest in writing for a newspaper.
At the time, Friedman was editor of the Richmond County Daily Journal and the first column ran in that paper the second week of August 2015.
When Friedman became editor of The Wilson Times in May of 2016, he began publishing Weaver’s column in that newspaper.
The then-weekly column also ran for a while in the Anson Record.
Weaver ceased sending his column for publication in the Daily Journal and the Record in mid-2018 and it first appeared in the Richmond Observer on Nov. 30, 2018.
In addition to the RO and Wilson Times, Weaver’s column also currently runs online in four other publications owned by WT parent company Restoration NewsMedia.
Weaver sticks mostly to humor, but has, on occasion, ventured into the socio-political realm in his writing.
He has since cut back to submitting a column every two weeks.
A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Weaver lives in New Bern and works as a pawnbroker.
