Episcopal Press and News

Wilmington Editor Wins 1974 Leidt Reporting Award

Diocesan Press Service. November 24, 1975 [75417]

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The religion editor of two Wilmington, Delaware daily newspapers is the winner of the 1974 award for outstanding religion reporting in the secular press given by the Episcopal Church's Executive Council.

Eileen C. Spraker received the William E. Leidt Award for Excellence for seven articles which appeared in Wilmington's Morning News and Evening Journal, on which she serves as religion editor.

Ms. Spraker's articles were cited by the judges for "good human interest stories " and included such features as baking communion hosts, an agricultural evangelist, a profile of a bishop of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of India, home-made communion chalices, a new set of "change" bells, a community action group's thrift shop, and exorcism.

The William E. Leidt Award was established by the Executive Council in 1963 to honor William E. Leidt, an Episcopal Church editor for 40 years. Mr. Leidt died in 1974. The award winner receives a citation and a check for $100.

Honorable mention went to the late Louis Cassels of United Press International for several meditations on Jesus, Paul, and Christmas; to William Willoughby, religion editor of the Washington Star, for his articles on prayer breakfasts, prayer and religious education in the public schools, and others; and to Kenneth Woodward of Newsweek Magazine, for several feature stories in that publication, including celibacy in the Roman Catholic priesthood, the importance of storytelling, Transcendental Meditation, and exorcism.