A Mahanoy City woman won national recognition and $500 in the Power Points Football Contest for Week Six and $50 from The Republican-Herald.
Rita Boczkowski was chosen by Tim McGovern, commissioner of the game, as the national winner.
The games begin the first week of September and last for 17 weeks. The picks include mostly NFL football games but Division I college games could be included, according to the website, powerpointsgames.com.
Boczkowski won for her picks of games on the weekend of Oct. 11 to 14. The entry form appears weekly in the Saturday edition of The Republican-Herald.
Contestants must rank the projected winners with their guesses based on confidence - with the most likely to win on the 16-point line and the least likely to win on the 1-point line. Boczkowski scored 123 out of a possible 136 points. A local winner is chosen in each of the 17 weeks in addition to a national grand prize winner each week.
"It's the first year we did this and the first time we had the national contest winner," Mike Joyce, director of advertising for The Republican-Herald, said Friday.
Statewide, 44 newspapers are participating, according to the website.
"The top scorer in the country wins $500 per week," Joyce said.
A perfect score earns the winning contestant $1,000. Joyce did not know how many newspaper were participating nationally.
The game is in its 19th year. More than $1 million has been given out in prize money.
Boczkowski did not return a call for comment Friday.