This year's D.C. Pro Hall of Fame dinner had a few unusual elements.
Including the Distinguished Service Award, the chapter honored six people this year instead of the typical five.
Some history was made, as Lou Chibbaro Jr. became the first Hall of Famer from a news organization focused on the local gay community.
Then, there was Shibli, the 8-year-old son of DSA honoree Asra Nomani. Shibli mischievously stepped in and grabbed the prize obelisk meant for his mother and wouldn't give it up.
About 125 people enjoyed the evening of achievement honors and journalism awards, as well as the homestyle meal at Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant in Washington, D.C.
This was the second year in a row that the Washington, D.C., Pro chapter of SPJ held its Hall of Fame dinner at Maggiano's. Last year, the chapter cut ticket prices 25 percent because of the more affordable costs at the homey new venue.
This year, ticket prices rose slightly, but were still less expensive than they had been in recent years at the National Press Club, the previous venue for the Hall of Fame dinner.
Besides Chibbaro, who reports for the Washington Blade, the rest of this year's Hall of Fame class was: Washington Post reporter Martin Weil, CCH Washington Bureau Chief Paula Cruickshank and Fox News Channel White House correspondent Wendell Goler.
Nomani and Barbara Feinman Todd, both of Georgetown University, received the Distinguished Service Award for founding the Pearl Project, an exhaustive look at what really happened when Wall Street Journal report Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002.
The chapter also handed out this year's Dateline Awards for journalism excellence (see related story).
Introducing Goler, Voice of America's Alex Belida said his friend has talent, skill and integrity and joked that Goler's 25 years covering the White House is "the price of not having a real job."
Goler, who started his career at the Jackson, Mich., Citizen Patriot, said he has learned from people every step of the way, including editors with opposing political views who helped make him fair and balanced.
He said his goal was to find truth and "to be more about getting it right than getting it first."
Steve Taylor, a D.C. Pro board member now with Fox News Radio, introduced Cruickshank, who he met 29 years ago. "Paula is a hero of mine," he said. "She can make a juicy story out of some very dry material."
Cruickshank joked about working in the basement of the White House since 1978. When Al Gore stumbled upon their work space, she and her colleagues joked that they were once tested for radon, but there were no results after 20 years.
She said she has always strived to be fair, accurate and objective.
Juan Williams, a 2008 Hall of Fame inductee, was back to speak on behalf of Weil, his former colleague at the Post, calling him "Hemingway-like" and "amazingly fast" while practicing journalism "in its highest form."
Weil didn't speak long in expressing his appreciation, but left the crowd with a memorable story about failing to ask a question while covering President Eisenhower in 1967 (who was at the hospital with a jaw problem) and Mother Teresa in 1972. He managed to get out two questions at a 1985 White House briefing, but, afterward, an editor was more interested in the coat Weil wore that day.
The lessons, he said, are: 1) "Always take care of your teeth"; 2) "To ask a question, speak up and talk fast"; and 3) "You never know who will see you – wear a nice coat."
Kevin Naff, the Blade's editor, said Chibbaro had to write under a pen name when he started out in 1976. Over the years, he helped many people through his work and inspired many others to realize they could be out and successful, Naff said.
Chibbaro said he was "deeply honored" to be part of a distinguished group in the D.C. Pro Hall of Fame, calling it a great moment for the gay press.
To Naff, Chibbaro added, "Thanks for putting up with my propensity to stretch a deadline and get one more source."
Feinman Todd and Nomani's Pearl Project issued a report that four men were convicted in Pakistan in connection with Pearl's death, even though they were not present when he died and U.S. officials knew it. Actually, 27 men were involved in a "multifaceted, at time chaotic conspiracy," the report said.
Kira Zalan, who worked on the Pearl Project, described Feinman Todd as "a frantic woman, with frantic hair, working on 25 things at the same time," who, along with Nomani, was "completely dedicated to the truth."
Erin Delmore, who also worked on the Pearl Project, called Nomani "a whirlwind, a force of landslide proportions." To elucidate further, she added that Nomani is "a crime-fighting kickass superhero in pink Timberlands."
Feinman Todd said people have called her a visionary, but there are just two moments when that's appropriate — when she married her husband and when she recruited Nomani, leading to "a Jew and a Muslim coming together at a Jesuit university."
"It's great to get something besides a subpoena," she concluded.
Nomani's acceptance speech story might have been the rawest of all.
She talked about her friendship with Pearl during their days at The Wall Street Journal. "He brought fun to my life," she said — that included volleball, music and a prom as an adult, making up for the one she missed as a girl.
There was no question that she'd try to find Pearl when he was kidnapped and investigate his fate later. "If the tables were turned," Nomani said, "he would have found me."