PORT ANGELES — Brenda Hanrahan is the Peninsula Daily News’ Employee of the Year for 2012.
Hanrahan, the editor of special advertiser-supported sections of the PDN, was picked in a vote by the PDN’s department heads.
She received the award at the newspaper’s annual holiday party for its employees in Port Angeles, Sequim and Port Townsend.
The PDN has 51 full-time and part-time employees in Jefferson and Clallam counties.
Hanrahan has been a reporter in the PDN’s newsroom and was editor of Sequim This Week, the PDN’s now-discontinued weekly newspaper.
“She has worked in a number of jobs here and done them all successfully with an easy smile, a solid dedication and a positive, warm attitude,” said John Brewer, PDN publisher and editor.
“She also has particularly impressive skills at accommodation.
“She has a special way of assuring others — inside the newspaper, and outside with our customers and news sources — that creates enduring, pleasurable and successful relationships.”
Other 2012 PDN award winners:
■ Carrier of the Year, “honoring the best of those individuals who brave wind, rain, ice, sleet, snow, loose dogs, roaming elk and bear to get our subscribers a dry and on-time newspaper Sunday through Friday” — Chuck Owens. He has been a carrier since July 2006, driving almost 20,000 miles a year to deliver 76,000 PDNs annually — with almost no “misses.” He lives with his wife, Margaret, in Joyce.
■ Advertising Ace of the Year — Sara Schaefer, a Sequim-based advertising sales representative. PDN Advertising Director Steve Perry said her customers repeatedly compliment her organizational skills and attentiveness to their advertising needs.
■ News Staffer of the Year — Rob Ollikainen. He covers Clallam County government, the removal of the Elwha River dams, WIRA water rules “and many, many more subjects,” said PDN Executive Editor Rex Wilson. “And he does it with accuracy, fairness, attention to deadline and eagerness to inform the reader.”
■ Edward Barton Webster Spirit Award — Jeremy Dugan, a graphic artist and ad builder. He also created an innovative format to display the PDN’s “Hot Properties” real-estate ads on the Web.
The Spirit Award is named after the man who founded the Port Angeles Evening News — predecessor to today’s PDN — on April 10, 1916.
