The readers of AY About You have made their voices heard in a record-setting way this month, casting more than 145,000 votes on the annual AY’s Best Of competition. Now, the voting “booths” have closed, and the only thing left is tallying the results. 

 

Thousands of preliminary votes were tallied up in February which narrowed the wide field of nominees, in an even broader landscape of categories, to a top-5. Since then, voters have combed through multiple choice ballots online to select the winners among the five finalists in each category. 

 

As excited as AY is to share these results with the winners and our readers, we are also taking precautionary measures, given the social distancing guidance set forth by the state of Arkansas and the city of Little Rock amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally, the AY‘s Best Of announcement gala was scheduled for April 30, where all top-3 finalists would be invited and the winners would be announced in an awards show style. The winners also would have been announced in the May issue of the magazine. However, we have altered our schedule to do our part in limiting such gatherings and flattening the curve of the novel coronavirus. 

 

As it stands, the official AY’s Best Of winners announcement party will now be on June 2. 

 

But we know how excited everyone is to finally see the results. So, we will be printing the top-3 in every category in the May issue of AY magazine — an appetizer for the full listing of winners which will now be published in the July issue. 

 

To the voters: Thank you all so much. None of this is possible without you and we sincerely appreciate your time and effort in voting. 

 

To the finalists: Thank you for everything you do in making our state a better place for all Arkansans. Congratulations on making it this far. 

 

Stay tuned.