If I thought summarizing Morgan's Raid within a 90-second script was a tremendous editing and performance challenge, doing the same with Commodore Perry's 1813 victory on Lake Erie was even tougher. But this was on our back doorstep. A trip to Put-In-Bay Island to shoot on-site footage helped put the thing in perspective.

This particular video won us what is, to date, the only Society for News Design Digital Award of Excellence in Advance Publications history.

Having grown up in Cincinnati, I had a grade-school familiarity with the story of John Hunt Morgan's 1863 raid across Indiana and Ohio. But when I sat down and tried to boil the raid and its context within the Civil War down to a 90-second script that made any sort of sense, I realized I had a serious writing and editing challenge on my hands. Very fun collaboration with the mighty Chris Morris and Jon Fobes.

Update on Thursday, December 19, 2013 at 05:48PM by William Neff

This project also involved some field work, traveling to Salineville and West Point, Ohio to track down the actual spot of Morgan's final surrender. The marker, which appears briefly at the end of this video, is in plain sight of Ohio Rt. 518 in Columbiana County — if you know where to look.