Concord Monitor photographer Preston Gannaway has won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.

The award, announced this afternoon at Columbia University in New York, honored Gannaway's work on a project called "Remember Me," which chronicled the death of Carolynne St. Pierre of Concord and its impact on her family.

The Pulitzers are the premier awards in American journalism. This is the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to the Monitor or any New Hampshire newspaper. The Monitor was, by far, the smallest newspaper to win a Pulitzer Prize this year.

Gannaway was part of a two-person team on the St. Pierre project, which also included reporter Chelsea Conaboy. They were invited by St. Pierre and her husband, Rich, to report on matters both medical and personal, in part to provide their children with a documentary of their mother's final days. "Both the written and multimedia stories will provide information and immeasurable comfort, later on in life, when Melissa, Brian, and Elijah begin to search for answers about their mother, Carolynne," Rich St. Pierre wrote last December.

Together, Gannaway and Conaboy spent two years reporting on St. Pierre's death and its aftermath. Gannaway's winning Pulitzer entry included 19 of the photographs she shot, and the Monitor published, last year.

Monitor editor Mike Pride was co-chairman of the Pulitzer Prize board. But because Gannaway was a finalist, he did not participate in the decision on the feature photography award.

Gannaway spent nearly five years as a Monitor photographer, where her assignments ranged from high school sports to presidential politics. Her work won numerous awards. In 2005, for example, she was named New England Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association. This year, the St. Pierre project won two awards in the prestigious Pictures of the Year International competition.

Before working for the Monitor, Gannaway was a photo intern at newspapers in New Mexico and Maine. She began her career at the Coalfield Progress in Virginia after earning a bachelor's degree in fine art photography at Virginia Intermont College.

Gannaway left the Monitor last month and - after a celebration in Concord today - starts a new job at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver this week.

Prize-winning entry:

Multimedia presentation of the series.

Slideshow of the Pulitzer photos.

PDFs of the photos and stories as they appeared in the Concord Monitor:

Part One: Our history being built (Oct. 5, 2006)
Part Two: A sea of grief is coming (Jan. 13, 2007)
Part Three: In the blue room (Feb. 13, 2007)
Part Four: Now we're four (Dec. 8, 2007)
Part Five: Surviving Together (Dec. 9, 2007)

Online versions of the stories as printed in the Concord Monitor:

Part One: Sick with cancer, a mother fights for time (Oct. 5, 2006)
Part Two: 'The sea of grief is coming' (Jan. 13, 2007)
Part Three: She died as she wished -- surrounded by loved ones (Feb. 13, 2007)
Part Four: 'Now, we're four' (Dec. 8, 2007)
Part Five: Surviving together (Dec. 9, 2007)