Reporters Ryan Uytdewilligen and Tim Kalinowski honoured for their outstanding contributions to local reporting and feature writing in Alberta.

Two Airdrie City View/ Rocky View Weekly reporters have won in two prestigious categories for the 2025 Alberta Weekly Newspaper Association’s 2025 Better Newspapers Competition (BNC) Awards of Excellence, which recognize distinction in local reporting.

Ryan Uytdewilligen won Best Local News Story for “Airdrie moms welcome new Canadian fentanyl control measures” which was published in the Feb. 13, 2025 edition of the Airdrie City View.

The judge’s comment said the article was timely when it came out in light of Donald Trump’s first tariffs he imposed on Canada when he became U.S. president for his second term.

“This was a tough category to judge,” the AWNA judge stated, “but this was far and away the best reporting category I reviewed. The reporter (Uytdewilligen) should be acclaimed for seeing a story most Canadians would have dismissed as a Trumpian figment.”

The judge goes on to acclaim the international significance of the story with a strong local angle with two Airdrie mothers speaking about their experiences with the loss of children due to fentanyl, ending with the comment:

“I wish more national newspapers had carried this; it might have swayed public opinion coast to coast.”

City View Editor Tim Kalinowski also won in the Best Feature Story By Local Writer category for a story he submitted as a reporter for the Cochrane Eagle, which also appeared in the Airdrie City View September 11, 2025 edition.

Entitled “Calgary Region Offers Treasure Trove Of Early Mammal Fossils,” the story delved into a unique and under-reported area of paleontology, starting with the earliest known mammals found in the Calgary region of Alberta just after the dinosaurs went extinct starting around 68 million years ago.