| Comments | 1982-09 newsletter with info, including:
The mood of our first annual Gala Awards Banquet on June 10 [1982] swung wildly, from pride to cheers to silence (and tears for some} as the late Morton Sontheimer's moving Newsweek article was read. Bonnie Remsberg, chairperson of the 1982 Awards Committee, emphasized in her opening remarks how proud we can be of our organization, because reviewing entries involved reading some of the finest journalism around.
[Later in newsletter]
Then came the Weisinger Award itself. Sally reported that when "Memories of a Small Bomb," by Past President Morton Sontheimer, which appeared on the "My Turn" page of Newsweek, was read at the
Awards Committee's judging session, everything came to a halt. "There was very little discussion, since practically everything that had to be said came through in the words of the article itself. All those present agreed that the article represented a magnificent achievement, a small classic
of journalism." And, she added, none of the members of the committee knew, the day they met in Chicago and chose this fine article, that its author had died in New York just a few days earlier.
Murray Teigh Bloom, another past president and founding member of the Society, accepted the award on behalf of his late colleague. Calling this
posthumous award "perfect," he commented that "Mort would have been among the first to appreciate the subtle irony of improbable events finally leading to an unlikely but destined conclusion." |