WKMS' Ohio Valley Resource Reporter/Assistant News Director Liam Niemeyer recently won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association, or RTDNA, the world's largest professional organization devoted to broadcast and digital journalism. The winning story focused on a Kentucky town in a moment of reckoning over its racist past. Niemeyer won the Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion category for his December 11, 2020, piece “A Blackface Photo Resurfaces, And A Kentucky Town Confronts Its Racial Trauma.” Niemeyer’s story was based on a Paducah, Kentucky, school official who appeared in blackface as part of a Halloween costume. But rather than make the school official the main focus, Niemeyer framed his story within the context of the larger Black community experience in Paducah. The result was a richer view of the city’s racial history, and a deeper understanding of just why the use of blackface by a trusted public official was so hurtful. The piece launched an occasional series that’s continuing at the Ohio Valley ReSource, called “Black Lives in Red States.”