One More Reason to Celebrate: It’s the Best of the Bay
Summer lends itself naturally to celebration. We celebrate in the season’s warmth and glow. We celebrate the beauty abloom around us. We celebrate the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables. We celebrate living in a the region defined by our Chesapeake Bay.
And now we celebrate Bay Weekly’s second annual Best of the Bay. It’s a special issue for us not only because it requires a lot of work but also because it’s a collective issue, reflecting your values and opinions.
Many a story idea comes to Bay Weekly by way of our readers, often someone with a story to tell and a passion for telling it that inspires their writing. Yet many a good story idea never sees ink, because making it to the page requires vast perseverance — and almost always the discipline to write, rewrite and write again.
Best of the Bay breaks down the barriers, and we’re flooded with your ideas — which not only create this issue but give us leads to follow up all year.
That’s why last year’s first-ever Best of the Bay was so much fun for us ink-stained wretches.
You, too, told us you enjoyed Best of the Bay. Some readers commended the issue as a whole. Others wanted to know when the ballots would be out for the next readers’ poll. But most took issue with the Best of results, citing their own favorites.
Truth be told, we at Bay Weekly don’t always agree with the winning results, but that’s half the fun.
Adding to the fun is the competitive rush that any poll provides. Pick up any daily newspaper this time of year for front-page stories reporting the push and pull of the latest political poll.
But Best of the Bay has its own share of competition. Hundreds and hundreds of ballots came through the mail, and hundreds more from our website — www.bayweekly.com — where those tech-savvy enough to have Adobe Acrobat could vote on-line.
Many categories were fiercely contested, with lead changes after each ballot counted. And there’s a lot at stake, as we’ve noticed many a Best of the Bay plaque adorning the walls of last year’s winning businesses.
Everyone has an opinion, and that’s a good part of why a readers’ poll like Best of the Bay is such fun. ‘So-and-so has the best milkshake, and I want everyone to know it!’ And so starts the voting frenzy, with friends giving friends blank (we hope) ballots; neighbors passing over the fence to neighbors extra copies of Bay Weekly. Come to think of it, we didn’t have Best Milkshake on the ballot this year, so who does have the best milkshake?
Alas, like a presidential election, there is no runner up in Best of the Bay. So let the winners celebrate and let us celebrate the winners.
