News

Portia Clark, a Green Valley civic leader who has spent decades standing up for justice in Arlington, received the newly renamed ARLnow Cup this week.

The Arlington County Civic Federation presented the award, previously known as the GazetteLeader Cup, at its final meeting for the 2024-25 year on Tuesday. Organizers recognized Clark’s ongoing role in supporting Green Valley’s character and preserving its history.


News

An Arlington-based photographer has won a Pulitzer Prize for his photos of last summer’s assassination attempt on President Donald Trump.

Doug Mills, a lifelong Arlington resident who discovered his love of photography at the Arlington Career Center, took home the honor this month for photos including a “one-in-a-million” shot of a bullet in midair — an instant before it hits Trump’s ear.


News

Three Arlington County residents are among the finalists for the 2025 Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Mid-Atlantic region.

Qu CEO Amir Hudda, Symplicity CEO Matt Small and Zoobean CEO Felix Lloyd have all been recognized by the program that “honors entrepreneurs whose innovations shape the future and pave the way for a thriving economy and hopeful tomorrow.”


Around Town

Seven Arlington and Falls Church restaurants have been announced as finalists in the the 43rd annual RAMMY Awards.

The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington announced local nominees for categories including Fast Casual Restaurant of the Year, Wine Program of the Year and Hottest Sandwich Spot of the Year at a ceremony last night (Monday).


Around Town

A Dominion Hills woman diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease received national recognition last month for her advocacy work.

Allison Signorelli was honored with the Citizen Scientist Cultivator Award for participating in various research trials after being diagnosed with the disease in 2022 at age 47.


Schools

An Arlington educator has received the nation’s highest honor for teachers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Geraldine “Gerri” Maskelony, a statistics teacher at Arlington Tech, has earned the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the White House announced this week. With the award, she received $10,000 from the National Science Foundation and a certificate signed by President Joe Biden.


News

Mark Cummings is a titan in Arlington’s legal establishment. But his impact extends far beyond the courtroom.

For the combination of a stellar career coupled with significant community involvement, Cummings on Tuesday (Nov. 19) was presented with the 2024 William Winston Award.


Schools

A Kenmore Middle School seventh grader is receiving national recognition for a project studying massive bursts of plasma from the sun.

Maedot Tinsae Ayalew has been named one of 30 finalists in the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge, a contest that celebrates middle schoolers who excel in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).


Around Town

One of Arlington’s own has secured her place among the world’s top Jiu-Jitsu martial artists.

With only a few years of training under her belt, last week, Beatrice Jin, a 28-year-old journalist from Arlington, clinched bronze at the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation World Championships at the Walter Pyramid in Anaheim, California.


ARLnow Reader Choice logo

ARLnow is thinking about bringing back The Arlies, but under a different name and with a new way to vote.

We paused the Arlington Community Awards program two-and-a-half years ago to re-think how best to differentiate it from other local awards. Another consideration: how to encourage more people to vote while discouraging repeat voting.

Now, as we near the latter half of 2024, we think we might have the answer to both. The current plan is to:

  • Rebrand The Arlies as the ARLnow Readers’ Choice awards
  • Vote on one category each week, throughout the year, using the same voting system as Morning Poll posts like this one (the Arlies used a survey system, in which one had to click a link and then vote by typing in an answer)
  • Have up to 10 choices for each category, selected via automatic qualification (highest rated on Yelp, etc.) and reader nomination (with annual promotion/relegation depending on nominations/votes received the prior year)
  • Utilize our voting system’s ability to disqualify instances of repeat voting from the same computer
  • Announce the official winners for the previous week in each weekly voting post

The other local awards are great, but voting for and then announcing the winners all at once is perhaps not ideal. We believe that voting for one category at a time, while showing the unofficial results in real time, could be more fun and not as overwhelming — while encouraging voting from a broader swath of Arlington residents.

What do you think?


News

A radio show that got its start at Arlington Independent Media has received recognition at the national level.

Choose to be Curious,” run by former AIM president and producer Lynn Borton, won the Alliance for Community Media Foundation‘s Hometown Media Award for best audio programming by an independent producer. The award will be formally presented in June at a conference in San Jose, Calif.


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