And once again.

• Position: UPFRONT - Alliance of Area Business Publications Editorial Excellence Awards

When the longtime emcee of the Alliance of Area Business Publications Editorial Excellence Awards announced the winner of this year's gold prize for best body of work by a magazine writer, he prefaced it by saying, "Here's a name we're familiar with." It was the fourth time Ed Martin has won the top prize. In fact, he received the award three consecutive years, followed by a bronze prize the next year.

In all, Ed has won 17 awards--13 of them gold--from the AABP, including another three-year run in which he took top honors for best magazine feature. But the amazing thing about this year's prize is that he won it for work he did last year when he was seriously ill.

As anybody who read last month's cover story knows, Ed was suffering from a leaking mitral valve and atrial fibrillation that, sooner rather than later, surely would lead to heart failure. But each day, no matter how bad he felt, he'd drag himself into work. Sometimes he could hardly keep his head off his desk. Go home, we'd urge. No, he would reply with a wan smile, might as well suffer here as at home. Besides, he might get some work done.

That he accomplished it is evident in the comments of the judges, members of the University of Missouri School of Journalism faculty: "The writer shows not only can he write well but can dig for the impossible-to-get story, such as an inside look at the controversial Blackwater USA. His writing takes you to the action, whether it would be listening to gunfire in Camden County to charting the future of the marine industry from the point of view of a fisherman setting out to Portsmouth Island."

We also won three bronze awards:

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