{"id":3623,"date":"2026-04-28T20:01:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/?p=3623"},"modified":"2026-04-28T20:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:04:07","slug":"new-categories-added-to-azalea-awards-including-one-for-people-who-didnt-win-an-azalea-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/28\/new-categories-added-to-azalea-awards-including-one-for-people-who-didnt-win-an-azalea-award\/","title":{"rendered":"New Categories Added to Azalea Awards, Including One For People Who Didn’t Win an Azalea Award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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TAKOMA PARK, MD – The Takoma Foundation announced that it will expand its annual Azalea Awards ceremony to include four new categories, including the recognition of everyone who did not win an award this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In Takoma Park, everyone is special,” said Takoma Foundation President Gus Ledbetter. “Unfortunately, our outdated award structure has systematically excluded losers. That ends now.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone can be nominated for an Azalea Award. Now, members of the community can be nominated for four additional categories:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Outstanding Achievement in Unauthorized Community Beautification<\/strong>, honors residents who have improved Takoma Park’s built environment without the knowledge or consent of the built environment’s owner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Best Unofficial Neighborhood Facebook Group Spin-Off<\/strong>, awarded to the resident who, after experiencing even a mild disagreement over tone, formatting, or the moral implications of someone asking if dogs should remain on a leash, took decisive action by creating a new, more refined online community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Recipient of the Most Citations Issued by Automated Stop Sign Camera<\/strong>, recognizing the resident who has received enough $40 citations to personally fund the demolition and rebuilding of the city library a second time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Sustained Excellence in Not Being Recognized<\/strong>, open to every nominee who has not yet won an Azalea Award, regardless of merit, effort, or basic awareness of the awards\u2019 existence. This unique category automatically nominates all 18,000 Takoma Park residents, and gaurantees them an Azalea Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new categories are expected to add roughly 18,000 winners, requiring a massive effort for the Takoma Foundation to mass produce 18,000 highly-coveted green tiles, possibly expanding the 2026 ceremony into the Spring of 2029.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nominations for the 20th Annual Azalea Awards are open now through May 15th. Nominating someone is very simple. First, visit www.takomafoundation.org. Second, find out that the website still hasn’t been updated since last year. Third, search the Takoma Park Facebook group, sifting through hundreds of posts to find that one post about how to nominate someone. Fourth, realize the post just sends you back to the Takoma Foundation website, where you repeat steps 1 through 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TAKOMA PARK, MD – The Takoma Foundation announced that it will expand its annual Azalea Awards ceremony to include four new categories, including the recognition of everyone who did not win an award this year. “In Takoma Park, everyone is special,” said Takoma Foundation President Gus Ledbetter. “Unfortunately, our outdated award structure has systematically excluded…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2217,2247,24,979,141,490,1807,640,1733,6,94,93,2248,2,2251,2250,104,2249,153],"class_list":["post-3623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ai-stop-sign-cameras","tag-azalea-awards","tag-dc-satire","tag-google-news","tag-humor","tag-jokes","tag-laugh","tag-maryland-satire","tag-montgomery-county-satire","tag-news","tag-parody","tag-satire","tag-takoma-foundation","tag-takoma-park","tag-takoma-park-restaurants","tag-takoma-park-stop-signs","tag-takoma-torch","tag-takoma-takoma-park-police","tag-tkpk","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20200106_21023790226671689851560647797804413751145959.jpg?fit=1600%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPZSG-Wr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3623"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3626,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions\/3626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}