CLEVELAND — Ashland Source lead reporter Dillon Carr bagged a 2025 All Ohio Excellence in Journalism award in early June for a story written about a local pizza business owner.
The writing contest included submissions from the 2024 calendar from publications across Ohio, judged by professional journalists throughout the United States. There were six award divisions, separated by publication mediums.
In the writing division, there were 39 categories and entries were considered for print and online publications of all circulation or audience sizes.
Carr competed in the writing division under the profile category for his piece on Ron Puglisi, an Ashland man who’s been in the pizza-making business for 50 years.
“This was just tremendous storytelling by Dillon,” said Larry Phillips, Ashland Source’s managing editor.
“When you crank out as many stories as Dillon does, it can be easy to fall into a routine and not recognize the potential of a terrific story. In this case, Dillon saw how special Ron’s story could be, went the extra mile on it, and was rewarded for it.”
Carr placed second for the piece. Other winners included pieces published in Cleveland Magazine and Akron Beacon Journal.
“We’re proud to have Dillon as part of our team,” Phillips said. “He does an excellent job covering Ashland County.
“I know the readers of Ashland Source appreciate his talent, as we do at Source Media Properties.”
Other winners across award divisions and categories included The Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ideastream, and the Marshall Project-Cleveland among many others.