on the dial to 870 kHz. When Insull's fortune began to disappear, he sold the licenses of both radio stations to National Broadcasting Company in 1931. The two were officially merged with WBCN leaving the air in early 1933. Awards In 2006, the Southtown was named Newspaper of the Year among the nation's large circulation suburban dailies by Suburban Newspapers of America and the American Press Institute. The judges said: "This is a terrific newspaper -- its spot-news coverage is both broad and deep, and its feature stories are as good as those of the country's best newspapers. The newspaper puts a lot of effort into providing value to readers -- and it shows." The paper also won the Illinois Associated Press Award for General Excellence in 2006, the national Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting, and the Chicago Headline Club's Watchdog Award for Reporting in the Public Interest. In 2010 photo editor Larry Ruehl and staff photographer Matt Marton received the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for feature photography. Notable staff The Southtown has produced a number of noteworthy journalists in its history. Among its resident writers is Phil Kadner, who has written a daily column for two decades. In 2002, he won the Studs Terkel Award for journalistic excellence for writing from a grassroots perspective, and has received several Peter Lisagor Awards for commentary. Of his most recent Lisagor win in 2006, the judges wrote: "His writing is absolutely clean. ... No personal vanity, and eyes open to the world and the ordinary people who are so extraordinary in it." Paul Ladewski served as the first Daily Southtown sports editor, and he went on to become a Lisagor Award-winner as well as the 2005 Illinois Sports Columnist of the Year. He was the only full-time beat writer to cover the Michael Jordan era in Chicago from start to finish. As a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, in the wake of the steroids controversy, Ladewski touched off a nationwide debate and raised awareness with the only known blank ballot in the 2007 National Baseball Hall of Fame election. In all, he covered more than 3,000 MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL games as a beat reporter or columnist. Kevin Carmody, environment reporter, won a 1999 George Polk Award, one of the nation's most prestigious prizes in journalism, for his