Deseret News columnist Jerry Johnston has been awarded the 2000 Wilbur Award for outstanding religion columns by the Religion Communicators Council.
It is the second time in four years that Johnston has received the award. He also received the honor in 1997. The award will be presented to Johnston on April 28 during the council's annual convention in Minneapolis.
The Religious Communicators Council, an interfaith group, awards Wilburs to selected films, TV programs, broadcasts and published material based on their religious content "recognizing excellence in communicating religious issues, values and themes in the public media." The prize is named for Marvin C. Wilbur, who served for 27 years as the council's executive officer while also being an information officer for the Presbyterian Church.
Johnston, 52, a Brigham City native, earned a bachelor's degree from Utah State University and a master's degree from the University of New Mexico, both in Spanish literature. He came to the Deseret News in 1976 as a sports writer. He later became a feature writer and columnist, adding a weekly religion column — "Ideally Speaking" — to his schedule in February 1997 when the newspaper started its Religion/Ethics section, which is published each Saturday.
During the past year he moved to the city section covering diversity issues and doing general assignments while retaining his column writing.
He is the author of two books, "Spirits in the Leaves," which was published in 1996, and "Dads and Other Heroes," which was published in 1992. Johnston has received numerous journalism and writing awards, including first-place awards from the Utah Arts Council and the Utah Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He also won first place in a regional Associated Press writing contest in 1995 for his reviews of books and theater and placed second in a 1998 AP contest in the personal columns category.
Johnston received the Mark E. Petersen Excellence in Writing Award in 1979, the highest honor awarded by the Deseret News at its annual recognition banquet.
He said his recipe for column writing is simple:
"I think the best way is to tap into universal themes that all people can relate to their own lives."
One religion page column last year (June 17), discussed a life-changing and life-saving experience he had at the Dallas-Forth Worth Airport on May 2, 2000, when he collapsed from cardiac arrest. He was returning from covering the dedication of the Cochabamba Bolivia LDS Temple. Thanks to the timely presence of medical personnel behind him and flight attendants at the terminal gate, he was resuscitated and taken to a hospital where he successfully underwent triple bypass surgery.
"Some have asked me if I had an out-of-the-body experience or if I saw the afterlife," Johnston wrote in one of the three award-winning columns submitted to the judges of the Wilbur contest.
"I'm sorry to say I didn't, though I did see the dazzling light people talk about. The professionals around me, however, got me back so quickly I'd never be able to get a book out of it.
"I barely got that last paragraph.
"As for the people who saved me. I'm still trying to figure out how to repay them. Eternal indebtedness just doesn't seem like enough."
Rick Hall, Deseret News managing editor, describes Johnston's column-writing this way:
"Jerry somehow consistently puts a subtle-but-impossible-to-ignore touch on his column that makes reading it both entertaining and enlightening.
"But, amazingly, you don't realize that until you're done. Hellfire and damnation, it ain't. The delivery is so soft that you're finished reading before you know you've been hit. But there's no doubt about what he was trying to say.
"It's clear that he gives his writing as much attention as his message. And, somehow, neither overshadows the other. His column is just a great read," Hall concluded.
What does Johnston think of all the fuss over his column writing?
"Because of my heart problems, I wrote fewer columns last year and readers seemed more pleased," he quipped. "I guess that means when the time comes that I don't write any, they'll be delighted."
E-mail: lynn@desnews.com