Welcome to the 2025 National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest!

Enter the Professional Contest Enter the High School Contest

About the APW Professional Contest

Arkansas Press Women’s communications contest is open to members and non-members. Entry fees are discounted for members. Entries in the professional contest must have been published or broadcast during the 2024 calendar year. Entry fees and deadlines are detailed below.

First-place winners in the APW contest may advance to the National Federation of Press Women's national competition .

The national contest is open only to members of NFPW. First-place winners in the Arkansas competition who are not members of NFPW will be notified and given an opportunity to join NFPW by paying their 2025 dues before the membership deadline of March 25, 2025.

First-place winners in the state contest will be asked to reimburse APW for the national entry fee of $20 per entry. APW requests reimbursement as an alternative to increasing all entry fees to cover this cost.

Additional information can be found on the professional contest page. If you have questions or need assistance, contact Arkansas professional contest co-directors Kristin Higgins at zesty_krstn@yahoo.com or Richard S. Plotkin at rsplotkin@conwaycorp.net.

For Arkansas submissions, the following fee structure applies per entry:

A one-time late-entry fee of $25 is assessed to professional contest entrants who submit after the NOON January 29, 2025, deadline. 

The High School Contest

The NFPW high school contest is a three-tiered contest offering 23 different categories for entry. The first level is the state-level contest in which states determine the best entries in each category for their state (click here to find your competition). Students who live in a state without a contest should enter the at-large contest.

The second tier is the national competition. First-place winners at the state level move on to compete in the national-level contest.

The third tier is the Julie Hoffman Memorial “Best of the Best” in which all first-place winners at the national level are judged against each other to determine the Best of the Best winner.

Entrants in the high school contest must be a current high school student or a recently graduated senior who completed the work during the eligible time frame. Entries in the high school contest must have been published or produced from February 1, 2024 – January  31, 2025.

The deadline for entering the high school contest is February 19, 2025 (NOON).  If you have any questions, please contact Maryanne Meyerriecks, high school contest chair, at churchladymm@yahoo.com

For a complete list of rules and prizes, please visit our website.

For the high school competition, the following fee structure applies per entry:

Deadline Dates for Professional Contest: