Matthew Stoss came to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, U.S., in 2022 with 10 years of experience as a “newspaper guy.” While working at the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record early in his career, he came back from an assignment and his editor, a mentor, asked him what color the interviewee’s eyes were. 

Stoss couldn’t recall. But he made note of the question, which he knew spoke volumes about the kind of attention to detail needed in a good reporter’s arsenal. He kept that note tucked away for more than a decade—checking for the color of every interviewee’s eyes—even though he never used that tidbit in a story...

… until two years ago when he was on assignment as Associate Editor of VCU Magazine. Writing a day-in-the-life profile of alumnus Buz Grossberg, a barbecue pitmaster and owner of Richmond’s landmark Buz and Ned’s Real Barbecue, he took note of the details—Buz’s clothes, the air quality that day, the ingredients in the rub, the “sugar-fat-smeared” knobs on the pit, the size of the hickory logs behind the restaurant, and yes, the color of his subject’s eyes:

After a salutatory honk of his GMC, Buz introduces himself. He’s wearing suspenders, jeans and a beard cropped like a putting green, and his physique suggests he delivered ice in 1904. He’s a Taurus, 70 years old and, my heavens, are his blue eyes enchanting, although my favorite thing about his face is his nose.

Stoss won a silver Circle of Excellence Award in profile writing for that article. It was one of five 2024 COE awards for VCU Magazine. Managing Editor James Irwin received a gold award in the same profile-writing category. The magazine was awarded silver in the “Publishing Improvement” category, along with a gold award in the “Alumni/General Interest (Printed Twice a Year)” category. The latter propelled the magazine to its fifth award—the coveted Robert Sibley Magazine of the Year Award. (All gold winners in the various “Alumni/General Interest” categories are automatically considered for the top prize.)  

We talked with members of the tight-knit magazine team about their magazine and their awards haul, especially the Sibley top honor. They summed up their feelings with words like “gratitude,” “validation,” “excited,” and “unexpected.”