Alabama Media Professionals presents awards to locals

Donna Francavilla and Solomon Crenshaw Jr. of Hoover were among winners of the 2019 Alabama Media Professionals and National Federation of Press Women’s communications contest. 

The awards were presented at The Club in Homewood on April 11. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist John Archibald was the keynote speaker at the luncheon.

AMP presented 55 awards in its annual communications contest and eight awards in the National Federation of Press Women’s communications contest. First-place winners in the AMP contest advanced to the national competition.

Francavilla was installed as the new AMP president at the luncheon. She has been an AMP member since 2011. A longtime national correspondent for CBS Radio, Francavilla also has worked as a TV news reporter, anchor and producer.

She recently returned to Alabama from New York to continue expanding her public relations/multi-media agency, Frankly Speaking Communications. Francavilla has produced for Oprah Winfrey, “Where Are They Now,” and the CBS Evening News.

In the AMP communications contest, Francavilla won three state-level awards: second place for prepared report for radio, third place for on-the-scene report for radio and honorable mention for special programming for radio.

Crenshaw won first-place awards in three categories at the state level for specialty articles for education, government or politics and green/environmental; a second-place award for feature story for an online publication; and an honorable mention award for his specialty article in sports.

He also won an honorable mention at the national level for his green/environmental specialty article entry.

Crenshaw is a veteran journalist who worked nearly 40 years for the Birmingham News and AL.com. He now works in multiple platforms, providing writing, photography and videos for clients.

 AMP is a state affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women. Members of both organizations include journalists and other professionals in a variety of communication-related fields.

Submitted by Alabama Media Professionals.