Food Safety News writer Cookson Beecher won five awards — all of them in the daily news category — at the 2015 Washington Press Association awards banquet held on May 9 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Four of the awards came in first place, and one came in third. Here are the awards she took home: First place, Health and Medicine, “A Mom and a Dairyman Plead: Don’t Feed Children Raw Milk“ First place, Agriculture/Environment, “Farmworker Housing Linked to Consumer Demand for Safe Food” First place, Science and Technology, “The Search for Alternatives to Antibiotics” First place, Food, “Grocery Manufacturers Want Foods With GMOs to Be Labeled as ‘Natural’” Third place, Food, “Food Safety to the Rescue”

Before coming onboard as a freelancer for Food Safety News, Beecher spent 12 years working as an agricultural and environmental reporter for the Capital Press, a four-state newspaper that covers agricultural and forestry issues in the Pacific Northwest. Prior to that, she was the editor of the Courier Times in Sedro-Woolley, WA. Beecher received her B.A. in political science from Hunter College in New York City, and, before moving West, she worked for publishing companies in midtown Manhattan. In the 1970s and 1980s, she and her family lived in North Idaho, where they built a log home and lived a “pioneer life.” She is currently co-owner of Pioneer Dahlias in Skagit County, WA.