Being the editor of Parents & Kids Magazine is a lot of fun. It seems that not a week goes by that I don’t meet someone who, upon learning what I do, says, “Oh! I love your magazine.” Having readers tell us that they like our magazine, find its articles helpful, and depend on the calendar to schedule their children’s lives is very gratifying.
More gratifying still is to have a national organization recognize our magazine’s outstanding editorial and design. In March Parents & Kids staff attended the annual meeting of Parenting Publication of America, our professional association. There we met with members of other parenting magazines from all across the US, Canada and even Australia.
At the awards ceremony Parents & Kids Magazine received two awards.
Parents & Kids was recognized with a silver medal in the most improved category for magazines of our size. When we introduced our re-design in December 2006, we knew we had improved the look and content of the magazine. Our designer, Caroline Kimbrough, was the master-mind behind it all, and her influence on the magazine has brought us to a level of quality we had only hoped for four years ago. The judges agreed.
Samantha Rayburn’s article, “Sophie’s Ears” won a gold medal in the category personal essay. Her touching story of her daughter’s hearing deficiency moved many of our readers. It also impressed the judges who were reading submissions from across the country. I am proud of Samantha, and we are honored she shared her story with our readers. With these two awards, we are now recipients of our sixth national award since 2004.
So, I invite you to enjoy your home grown, parenting magazine. You can do so knowing that you are reading a national award winning magazine created just for Mississippi parents.
