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Strazzante, Ackerman win top honors at Southern Scott Strazzante of the Chicago Tribune and Jenn Ackerman, a graduate student at Ohio University, won top honors as 2008 Southern Photographer of the Year and 2008 Southern Student Photographer of the Year, respectively, this weekend. Strazzante also won Best of Show with his diptychs entitled "Echoes from the Past" pairing his coverage of a disappearing family farm shot earlier this decade and new homeowners on the same land shot in 2007. The winners were officially announced today by yours truly on the closing day of the Southern Short Course in News Photography in Charlotte, N.C. Even though Scott and Jenn weren't at the conference, we tried to bring them there through modern cellular technology. Jenn got a message on her voice mail with the gallery hollering "CONGRATULATIONS" while Scott got the real thing while driving on one of Chicago's freeways. His enthusiasm came right through the speaker phone held to the mic at the podium. Runners-up for the professional and student divisions are Ross Taylor of The Hartford Courant and Jarrett Baker, an undergraduate due to walk across the stage at the University of Florida this May. The remainder of the winners will be posted soon on the SSC Web site. Contest rules for the 2009 contest will be posted within the next month with a call for entries going out later this year. 
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