Business: April a good month for local Realtors. Three area papers share 8 Georgia Press awards; radio honors next. Downtown Development meeting Thursday.

The April report for the Greater Rome Board of Realtors is out and it has good news as the market recovery continues:

Total single family home sales: 90 (15.4% increase)
Total active listings: 132 (1.5% decrease)
New listings: 517 (17.8% decrease)
Median sales price: $125,000 (20.3% increase)
Average sales price: $154,627 (8.7% increase)

Awards time for area newspapers: The Georgia Press Association presented the 2016 Better Newspaper Contest winners on Friday at the Jekyll Island Club.There were 645 awards presented in 37 categories to 78 newspapers (dailies, twice weeklies, weeklies, others). On the local front:

Rome News-Tribune (daily circulation 8,000 to 24,999): First place, humorous column; third place, business, and third place, sports column. This was the first year the RNT competed as part of the Marietta Daily Journal ownership. The MDJ also competed in the 8,000-24,999 category and collected nearly two dozen honors, including second place for general excellence (the Athens paper took top honors).
Cartersville Daily Tribune News (daily circulation under 8,000): First place, religion; second place, religion; second place, sports.
Summerville News (weekly circulation of 4,000 to 14,999): Second place, feature column; third place, humor column.
Click here for all the winners: BNCPressRelease2016.

The Georgia Association of Broadcasters’ annual GABBY Awards will be presented this Saturday. Local for several local stations to take home awards.

The Campbell School Business at Berry College has maintained its business accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International. AACSB Accreditation is the hallmark of excellence in business education, and has been earned by less than 5 percent of the world’s business programs. To learn more about the Berry College Campbell School of Business visit http://berry.edu/academics/campbell/.

The monthly meeting of Rome’s Downtown Development Authority will be held Thursday in the Carnegie Training Room of the Carnegie Building, 607 Broad St., at 8:30 a.m.