Florida Press Club honors ByJoeCapozzi.com with four first-place journalism awards

BYJOECAPOZZI.COM won four first-place awards in the 75th annual Florida Press Club Excellence in Journalism competition.

The Lake Worth Beach-based independent news website took first place in the Class B and C categories for Government News and Sports Features and in the Class C category for Community News and Light Features.

Honored stories include a series of articles about a political action committee that influenced the Lake Worth Beach municipal elections and shark attack survivor who opened a shark-themed vacation rental.

All stories were edited by Joel Engelhardt, co-founder of Stet News Palm Beach, which won best newsletter and took second place for best independent news site.

The awards honored work produced between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024, and were announced Feb. 1 at a gala in Ocala. 

The winning Government News stories:

• Candidate’s rookie mistake fuels partisan uproar in nonpartisan Lake Worth Beach race 

• A look behind the PAC campaign to change the LWB commission 

• Recovery advocates rip LWB PAC Mailers

The winning Community News stories:

• Why the MLK mural in downtown Lake Worth Beach is being removed

• Pop-up food charity may be forced out of LWB over traffic issues

• Food charity relocating LWB distribution site to Boynton Beach mall

The winning Light Features stories:

• Fantasy hurricane league helps blow away storm season scares

• He survived a shark attack, then opened a shark-themed vacation rental

• Glutton pros hungry to go cob-to-cob in corn eating contest

The winning Sports Features stories: 

• The day Brooks Robinson stuck around with a young photographer in WPB

  
  

• How pickleball is reuniting the 2003 champion Marlins 

  
  

• 50 years ago, Hank Aaron ‘zoo’ invaded WPB ahead of final assault on Babe Ruth’s record

ByJoeCapozzi.com also won third place in serious features category for these stories:

• Banjo picker who advised presidents, jammed with folk icons enjoying amellower gig in Lantana 

  
  

• Bartender who befriended Jimmy Buffet hosts celebration of life paddle out

  
  

• Trash-talking garbage man on a mission to clean up after litterbugs 

The contest’s top award, the Frances DeVore Award for Public Service, went to The Villages Daily Sun for telling the stories of the 172 people who died from Hurricane Ian, documenting 15% more deaths than the government found and that 90% were senior citizens, disabled, homeless or migrant workers. Click here to read the stories.

Keynote speaker Vivienne Serret, a University of Florida journalism student, shared how she exposed the extraordinary spending of former UF President Ben Sasse.  

Click here for a list of all winners.

Launched in 2021 by a former Palm Beach Post reporter, ByJoeCapozzi.com is an award-winning independent news website fueled by a passion for storytelling about events in our community.

© 2025 ByJoeCapozzi.com All rights reserved.

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About the author

Joe Capozzi is an award-winning reporter based in Lake Worth Beach. He spent more than 30 years writing for newspapers, mostly at The Palm Beach Post, where he wrote about the opioid scourge, invasive pythons, the birth of the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches and Palm Beach County government. For 15 years, he covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. Joe left The Post in December 2020. View all posts by Joe Capozzi.