The Lufkin Daily News publisher Greg Weatherbee has been named a finalist for the Carmage Walls Commentary Prize.

First-, second- and third-place awards for editorials and columns will be presented Oct. 21 during an awards luncheon at the Senior Leadership Conference in Charleston.

Separate awards will be presented in each category for newspapers under 35,000 and those over 35,000 circulation.

Additional honorable mentions will also be announced Oct. 21.

The prize is named for the late Benjamin Carmage Walls, whose newspaper career spanned seven decades. Walls primarily owned community newspapers and advocated strong, courageous and positive editorial page leadership.

In alphabetical order, the finalists in this year's Carmage Walls Commentary Prize competition are:

Columns

Charita Goshay, columnist, The Canton Repository, Canton, Ohio

Suzette Hackney, national columnist, USA TODAY, Washington, D.C.

Dion Lefler, opinion editor, The Wichita Eagle, Wichita, Kansas

Rex Nelson, senior editor, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, Arkansas

Nedra Rhone, lifestyle columnist, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia

Greg Weatherbee, publisher, The Lufkin Daily News, Lufkin, Texas

Editorials

Nick Hrkman, community impact editor, Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio

Dion Lefler, opinion editor, The Wichita Eagle, Wichita, Kansas

Rebecca Pierce, executive editor, Traverse City Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Michigan

Dave Stafford, opinion page editor, The Republic, Columbus, Indiana

Byron Tate, editor, Pine Bluff Commercial, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Lucy Young-Oda, editor, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii