By Andrew WestDOVER — The stars will be out again this year.
The Stars of Delaware, that is.
Our newspaper has launched its latest reader poll, offering readers a chance to nominate and later vote on their favorite businesses, restaurants and more. Readers help us with nominations in 183 categories.
After the nominations are tallied, we then take the top selections and voting begins in the round to determine the “stars.”
“Stars of Delaware allows us to really celebrate the unique businesses we have throughout Delaware and it allows our readers – who are opinionated, excited people – to talk about those businesses,” said Konrad LaPrade, group advertising director for the Delaware State News and its sister papers on Delmarva.
In just four days, we already have more than 2,000 submissions for this year’s reader poll.
Last year, it took a few weeks to top that number.
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Just weeks before the shutdown last year, we announced the return of “Stars of Delaware” after a 17-year hiatus.
We thought it had great possibilities, especially knowing so many area businesses still proudly display Stars of Delaware plaques behind their business counters.
The pandemic and shutdown of businesses and normal day-to-day Delaware life had the potential to derail our plans to bring back the popular reader choice honors. Voting started the weekend after Delaware went into the state of emergency.
But readers stepped up in a big way.
We wrapped up with 72,000 nominations and votes last year. Extraordinary, really.
The categories that generated the most interest in nominations and votes were hair salon, pizza, wings, cheese steak, family restaurant and family doctor.
Last year’s winners can be found in a Stars of Delaware booklet we published last year.
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Heather Cregar, our director of marketing and promotions, is among our team leaders on the “Stars of Delaware” project.
The renewal of it last year brought back some memories of how we toiled to compile the information years ago. It was all on paper at the time and the staff was swimming in nominations, counting votes in the office by day and at night in their homes.
“It was a huge undertaking,” she said. “The fact that we have technology now where people can go online and vote makes it so much better. It makes it so much easier to participate and share the information with other people to encourage them to vote.
“That’s just made it a lot more accessible to people.”
That said, we still accept paper nominations. In Wednesday’s Delaware State News, you will see an advertisement with the many categories.
One thing Ms. Cregar wanted to point out is the special “Person of the Year” award, which is open to pretty much anyone who has influenced the community.
Last year, civic leader Don Blakey was honored.
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The nomination round ends on May 9.
The voting phase starts May 23 and closes June 20.
Nominations and voting are done with an easy-to-use Stars of Delaware form online.
Anyone who completes at least 25 categories in either the nomination ballot or voting ballot will be entered to win $250.
Once the voting closes, the votes will be tallied and the top winners (two top finalists and the Star of Delaware) will be announced in a special, glossy-covered booklet in the Delaware State News on Sunday, Sept. 5.
Early projections are that we will have even more votes this year than last.
So we are expecting more fun and more competition in every category.
“We’re getting a lot of businesses nominated that were not last year,” said Ms. Cregar.
So, that means that those on the ballot last year cannot be complacent if they want to repeat.
We can’t wait to see the “stars” come out again this year. Good luck!
Andrew West is executive editor of the Delaware State News.
