And the Ernie goes to . . .

The Ernie Deane Award committee was apparently at a loss for words when it recently honored Maylon Rice. The citation he received read simply: “To Maylon Rice of the Northwest Arkansas Times for coverage of the University of Arkansas Press Story.”

The document omitted basic journalistic information, such as who the citation was from. Not exactly the kind of thing you can hang on your office wall.

For the record, Rice’s reporting was instrumental in saving the UA Press last year. Chancellor John White decided last May to close the Press. After considerable hounding by Rice and numerous articles in the Times as well as in other newspapers, White reversed his decision.

It was exactly the kind of coverage of which we suspect veteran newsman Deane, who died in 1991, would have approved. The Ernie Deane Award is given annually to writers whose work “best exemplifies the spirit, style and courage of its namesake.” Deane was a veteran journalist perhaps best known for his sometimes lonely but ultimately successful campaign to save Old Main.

Rice’s citation was a special honor from the committee, which gave this year’s Ernie Deane Award to Ernest Dumas, a syndicated columnist and journalism professor at the University of Central Arkansas.

Both awards were presented during the University of Arkansas Journalism Days annual banquet, held April 15 at the Hilton Hotel in Fayetteville.