The Altamont Enterprise is reporting the editor of The Altamont Enterprise, Melissa Hale-Spencer, has been presented with the International Society of Weekly Newspaper editors' Golden Quill award for her February 2020 editorial, “In the sale of Picard’s Grove, what’s done in haste will be repented at leisure.” She is the first woman in the competition’s 60-year history to claim the award twice and the only New Yorker to have won. The honors were announced at the group's annual convention, held remotely from Reno, Nevada, last week. Hale-Spencer's winning editorial was part of a series written after the owner of Picard’s Grove was declared“ incapacitated and placed in a nursing home. Picard's Grove was a long-time community gathering place at the foot of the Helderberg Mountains and a court-appointed attorney was poised to sell the 87-acre property quickly to a developer. Ultimately, the property was saved when the judge selected a neighboring couple as the purchasers. Contest judge, Rhonda Clark, wrote of Hale-Spencer's piece, “The editorial provides excellent background information on the 87-acre farm and its contents, and the questions that arise about the lawyer in charge of disposing of the property to a developer. This begins as an individual’s story that turns into a community issue. ..." Hale-Spencer was first named to the so-called Golden Dozen in 1999. In 2008, she won the Golden Quill, for the editorial “We, the people, are responsible for what our government does.” Read more at altamntenterprise [dot] com.