Judges' Comments
	"Schulken writes with gentle, graceful authority. Her columns are intimate without being self-indulgent, compassionate without being sentimental, challenging without being preachy or self-righteous."
	Laying on the Brush Strokes Learning From Ulster A Community's Responsibility

Like Adolph Rupp’s arrival in Southeastern Conference basketball, a period of dominance began when Cox bought the Greenville Daily Reflector in 1995. With it came columnist and editorialist Mary C. Shulken, who began a remarkable series of first places in Best of Cox. This is her tenth in the last seven years.

The topic too harsh for her to editorialize about hasn’t come along, and in "A community’s responsibility" she placed on all Greenville citizens’ shoulders the responsibility for doing something about violence at the Moyewood housing project.

She was asked, has additional violence occurred there?

"Petty violence is ongoing in Moyewood, but no more 14-year-olds have been shot in the back," she said. "What has changed is the tenor of the response by the city’s elected leadership. The pointing of fingers, for now, has become less prominent than listening to each other and talking about solutions."

In "Laying on the brush stokes," she recalled a man who painted her house, engaged her in lively political discussion, and died.

"Life blinks, and closes its eyes, just like that," Schulken wrote.

She was asked, although he is gone it was gratifying, wasn’t it, to see how an ordinary person was engrossed in the news of the day?

"That column was about the value and joy of a reasonable mind, which I happen to think most people possess and prefer," Schulken said.

"I think most people are seekers, and that’s part of the reason they read editorial pages and columns. They are looking for a connection, a challenge, a way to have a conversation, that ‘companionship while laying on the brush strokes.’"

Born and raised in Lake Waccamaw, N.C., Schulken graduated from East Carolina University with a degree in English and a minor in journalism. She joined the Daily Reflector staff in 1980.

Here is the record of Schulken’s domination in the Community Division of the Best of Cox in recent years.

She has won: 1996 Editorial writing; 1998 Editorial writing; 1998 Column writing; 1999 Editorial writing; 1999 Column writing; 2000 Writer of the year; 2000 Column writing; 2001 Column writing; 2001 Business reporting; 2002 Column writing.