Abha Thakkar, in her capacity as editor of the Northside News, nominated Rita for this award.

Abha wrote in her nomination:

“Rita is the Northside News submissions manager, and every time NPC offers to pay her, she threatens to donate the money right back to us. She has donated over $12,000 of free labor to the Northside News in the last three years.

“She approached us in 2013 about volunteering her copy editing skills, which she learned in her career proofreading for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She has since given 30-40 hours per issue, entirely for free. She has made it possible for us to continue publishing the newspaper during a very vulnerable time in the organization, when we were severely understaffed and working furiously to bring financial stability to FEED. The newspaper would have not have held its quality these last couple years without her support.

“Rita is utterly reliable and consistent. I can always count on her to meet deadlines and be flexible when others don’t. She has learned new technologies with grace and persistence as we have moved to working in the cloud. I only have to train her once on a new process.

“In 2015, she started directly receiving and organizing all the submissions. She checks and converts photo resolution, researches and fact checks the articles, and fills in missing information. She pulls event information out of the articles for our calendar insert. As I double as interim executive director and editor, I don’t have to sweat the AP stylebook or accuracy—she has freed up a critical amount of my time and brainpower.

“And, finally, with her dry wit and self-effacing sense of humor, she is a joy to work with. She never seeks attention or the spotlight for herself, but I thought it was time for Northsiders to be made aware of her significant contributions to their beloved newspaper.”