Aaron Orlando, the editor of the Revelstoke Times Review won one award and finished runner-up in a second category at the Ma Murray Awards in Richmond on Saturday.
Orlando won the Neville Shanks Memorial Award for Historical Writing for his article Does ‘Revelstoke’ meteorite hold evidence of extra-terrestrial life? that appeared in the Mar. 9, 2011 issue of the Times Review.
The article is about a meteorite that crashed near Revelstoke in 1965. When a report was published last March that the meteorite might contain signs of extra-terrestrial life, he went into the archives to explore the little-known history of the meteorite.
“Revelstoke has a rich, interesting and often fun history. I’m always thankful for Revelstoke Museum & Archives curator Cathy English’s knowledge and assistance with local history,” he said in an e-mail after winning. “We should all be thankful of the tremendous resources made possible through the Revelstoke Museum & Gallery Collective. Having said that, it was rewarding to find a lesser known chapter in our local history and make that connection to current events. I note the Revelstoke meteorite is one of only a handful of its kind, and it has yet to be tested for alien bacteria fossils, so it may yet be our first encounter with alien life, if someone is brave enough to crack it open – that is if someone hasn’t ‘lost’ it yet.”
Orlando earned a Silver award in the John Collinson Memorial Award for Investigate Journalism category for a series of articles about squalid workcamps in the Revelstoke area.
The series began with an article headlined Forests ministry knew of conditions in squalid camps; workers not yet paid that appeared in the July 20, 2011 issue of the Times Review.
He was beat out by Black Press colleague Jeff Nagel’s series Justice Denied about the problems facing the provincial legal system.
The Ma Murray awards honour the best in community newspapers throughout British Columbia and the Yukon.