The Best of Bay Weekly

     Together, we turned a lot of pages over the course of a year. On many of them, you’ve found a moment’s insight or delight. Others told you just what you needed to know. Some stayed in your mind, even after all those words have come between you and them all that time ago. So I can still recount stories we ran five, 15 or 25 years ago.

      Before I close the book on 2018 (yes, I really do have a large, heavy book labeled Vol. XXVI, 2018), I like to reflect on what we’ve done in the 52 issues of our 26th volume, our 25th year.

      Following the pattern of this Best of the Bay edition, I’m awarding them categorical bests. 

Best New Bay Weekly Feature:

      Wayne Bierbaum’s photos and stories for Creature Feature. When it comes to nature photography, this doctor (he’s the fulltime medical director of Bay Community Health) is on the case. How does he get his startling, often close-up, images? “I move very slowly,” he tells us.

Best Bay Weekly Cover of 2018

      Celebrating 25 Years: April 19 — How can you beat a collage of our favorite covers from our entire quarter-century history?

Second-Best Cover of the Year

     Graphic artist Joe Barsin’s May 17 fouled anchor entwined by Blue Angels celebrating the sky-shooting team’s return for U.S. Naval Academy commissioning.

Most Heart­warming Stories

       That’s got to be this year’s trio of Christmas stories by the winner’s of Bay Weekly’s Christmas Story Competition: Sarah Songbird’s Big Sister’s Best Christmas Present [www.bayweekly.com/node/46550]; Bud Stupi’s Two Christmas Trees [www.bayweekly.com/node/46548]; Leslie Dickey’s story, The Colonel Gets His ­Drumstick [www.bayweekly.com/node/46549].

 

Most Moving Story

www.bayweekly.com/node/45987

       Bob Sell’s November 8 Remembering the Battle of the Bulge, interviewing and profiling two survivors of the World War II battle, a Belgian civilian and an American soldier. 

Saga Come Full Circle

[www.bayweekly.com/node/46066]

       Sarah Jablon’s November 15, Promises Kept, concluding the journey she began a year earlier to trace her grandfather’s experiences in Ecuador. The saga began in Bay Weekly in 2017 with Sarah’s story The Postcard.

Eeriest Story

[www.bayweekly.com/node/45768]

      Susan Nolan’s Halloween Feature My House Is Haunted — and I Want to Know Why.

Scariest Photo

       Wayne Bierbaum’s Black Widow Spider. 

Best Animal-Related Story

www.bayweekly.com/node/44605

       Intern Keri Luise’s August 16 profile of Nitro the independent-minded Canine Companion for Independence in Training.

Sleeper Subject of the Year

       Handwriting: We explored an art we hope isn’t dying in Diana Dinsick’s January 18 story The Uncertain Future of Handwriting [www.bayweekly.com/node/41692] and again in Jane Elkin’s Mother’s Day examination, Reconciliation: How Handwriting Helped Me Forgive My Mother and Myself [www.bayweekly.com/node/43206].

 

Best Prospects for Reading

www.bayweekly.com/node/46260

      The November 29 story Beloved Christmas Books, in which a Bay Weekly trio joined Anne Arundel and Calvert librarians in recalling and recommending books to warm your heart against winter’s chill. 

Most Useful Features

      Kathy Knotts’ 8 Days a Week, plus Summer’s 101 Ways and Season’s Bounty Holiday Guide

Best Advice to Catch a Fish

     Dennis Doyle’s weekly Sporting Life column.

Best Play Reviewer on the Bay

     Jim Reiter

Best Advice on the Movies

     Diana Beechener’s The Moviegoer

Biggest Loss to Bay Weekly Pages

     Dr. Francis Gouin, our beloved Bay Gardener and columnist since 2005, left this world for the next on August 2, at the age of 80. We’ve lost his presence, but he left much of his knowledge behind for us, in his lifetime of teaching, mentoring and writing. Read his valedictory: 

www.bayweekly.com/node/44496.

More Bay Weekly Farewells

      With heavy hearts we say a long good-bye to former associate editor Sonia Linebaugh, a contributor from our earliest days, and to retired play reviewer and proofreader Richard Wilson.

Thanks to these contributors for bringing us good reading all year 

      Liz Barron, Joe Barsin, Diana Beechener, Krista Pfunder Boughey, Audrey Broomfield, Warren Lee Brown, Steve Carr, Shelby Conrad, Allen Delaney, Leslie Dickey, Donna Day, Diana Dinsick, Dennis Doyle, Debbie Brown Driscoll, Louise Dunlap, Jane Elkin, Kate Fitzgerald, Margaret Barker Frankel, Leigh Glenn, Frank Gouin, Jackie Graves, Mark ­Hendricks, Prue Hoppin, Linda Hubbard, Sarah Jablon, Barbara Johnson, Betsy Kehne, Kathy Knotts, Keri Luise, Bob Melamud, Kristen Minogue, Bill Mitchell, Ellie Pesetsky, Maria Price, Susan Nolan, Jim Reiter, Marjie Riordan, Elisavietta Ritchie, Bill Sells, Birgit Sharp, Pam Shilling, Iris Shur, Sarah Songbird, Anne Sundermann, Bud Stupi, Margaret Tearman, Ken Walsh and Cassi Whitehead.