In 1981, Betty Cuniberti became the first female sportswriter to win a Headliners Award. Her newspaper, The Washington Star, folded six months before the awards banquet.
Headliner awards get around. Sometimes in circles.
Vern Haugland, an Associated Press war correspondent, was honored in 1945 for meritorious journalistic achievement. Five months later, a letter arrived thanking Headliners for the honor – the medallion had finally caught up with him in Tokyo after traveling by mail from previous duty stations in New Guinea and Guam.
Two years earlier, Haugland said, he received a Headliners medallion while posted in Guam. He sent a thank-you note then, simply mailing it to “Headliners Club, Atlantic City.” “About a year later, that letter made its way back to New Guinea because of an inadequate address,” he wrote.
“I should like at this time, therefore, to thank the Headliners Club for that earlier award.”
And Headliners thanks you, Vern, and the thousands of other journalists for the outstanding achievements we’ve recognized through the last nine decades. And we look forward to the next round of entries.
We can’t wait to see what the next 90 years will bring.