Every year state press associations throughout the country dole out their annual newspaper awards for the best feature stories, breaking news, business coverage — you name it, there’s a category for it.

What most non-newspaper people don’t realize is that those contest entries for the most part are judged by the journalists’ peers in other states.

Our best work isn’t studied by a panel of Pulitzer Prize winners or journalism professors. Instead, it generally winds up on the desks of other reporters and editors who then squeeze judging contest entries into their otherwise busy schedules.

This year we got a box of entries from North Dakota journalists and because I write a bi-weekly column, I was tasked with judging the columns from various-sized weekly and daily papers. My immediate observation is that everyone who works for a No-Dak newspaper must be mandated to write a personal column because their pages are stuffed with them.

Take one issue of the Benson County Farmers Press, for example. Their editorial page had a long narrative from Richard Peterson — whose column is titled “Poor Richard’s Almanac: Outrageous & Unsolicited Ranting” — about his “big trip to the Twin Cities.” His five-day trip apparently was being detailed day by day because in this particular column he describes just one day of his trip, with “continued next week” at the end.

In this same edition there’s a column called “That’s Life,” with a photo of the writer decked out in a 1950s-style hat (a press card stuffed in the hat band) and he’s clutching a cigar. Pure cornball.

Then there as “Slices of Life,” a homespun piece that on this day listed 100 sweet, simple pleasures of life. Polished toenails is No. 27 on the list. It actually was a pretty impressive list.

Don’t get me wrong. I love these small-town ramblings. A lot of my own columns are nothing more than everyday stories.

This year’s North Dakota column entries were filled with observations— some funny, some kind of sad — about life in the Bakken oil boom. Longtime journalists lamented the increased traffic, shortage of housing and the loss of their small-town quality of life.

One reporter, recently transplanted from Los Angeles to rural North Dakota, wrote about trying to fit in with the locals and worrying about what to order at the local diner when he went out to eat with a group for the first time.

Turns out it wasn’t ordering fish instead of steak that tripped him up; it was asking for french fries instead of a baked potato. Apparently baked spuds are the potato of choice in that town, and they told him so.

Food is a popular topic for N.D. column writers. At the Walsh County Record Adele Hankey, in her “Dabble with Dell” column, offered solid advice, saying “a balanced meal must have a vegetable of some kind.” She then proceeded to present carrot and green bean recipes with copious amounts of cheese and bacon.

“I love them with bacon,” she confided.

One columnist I didn’t get to critique was Grand Forks Herald restaurant reviewer Marilyn Hagerty, whose review of the new Olive Garden in town last year won her national acclaim when food bloggers chided her for writing about a chain restaurant. Their criticism of the elderly columnist then spawned an outpouring of support and suddenly Hagerty was in the national news with acclaimed chef Anthony Bourdain praising her work.

Hagerty wrote about her 15 minutes of fame is a recent column, and to top if off she did a second review of the Olive Garden, noting once again that the soup and salad lunch, with its freshly baked breadsticks for $5.50 “is a very good buy.”

“Children are well-treated with color crayons and choices including a little cup of grapes as one of the side dishes,” she wrote.

There’s something very endearing about these small-town columnists who share all kinds of personal stories, from surviving a heart attack to getting a car jump-started on a 30-below day by a good Samaritan.

Far from the politics of Washington, D.C. and the top national stories of the day, these slice-of-life reflections truly still are the heart of America.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.