R. Scudder Smith, editor and publisher of Antiques and The Arts Weekly and its sister publication, The Newtown Bee, has been named the recipient of the 2006 Award of Merit, presented annually by the Antique Dealers Association of America. Smith will be honored at a dinner hosted by the ADA on Saturday, April 8, at the Philadelphia Antiques Show. Past award winners include Albert Sack, Elinor Gordon, Wendell Garrett and Betty Ring.

“This was an easy decision. Scudder is very deserving of this award, which acknowledges individuals who have made a major contribution to our field,” said ADA president Skip Chalfant.

“In his understated and thoroughly professional way, Scudder has been an enormously positive influence in the antiques business. Antiques and The Arts Weekly supports the common interests of dealers, collectors, curators, museums, historical societies, auctioneers and show promoters,” said Arthur Liverant, vice president of the ADA and an organizer of the awards dinner.

Board member John Keith Russell added, “We honor Scudder as one of our own. With his wife, Helen, he has counseled many of us in the antiques field, provided fair and supportive coverage of our activities, and encouraged the ADA from its earliest days.”

R. Scudder Smith joined The Newtown Bee, a newspaper founded in 1877 and acquired by his grandfather and two great-uncles in 1881, in 1961. With its roots in the farming communities of western Connecticut, The Newtown Bee had long carried notices of estate auctions and house sales, along with small notices for flea markets and fairs. As a young newspaperman who began collecting antiques while still a student at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., Smith recognized the media potential of an increasingly popular pastime.

Working for his father, Paul S. Smith, The Newtown Bee’s editor from 1934 to 1973, Scudder Smith developed the newspaper’s antiques content, selling advertising to dealers and auctioneers throughout New England and soliciting stories from authorities such as the late Woodbury, Conn., dealer Kenneth Hammitt.

Smith increased The Newtown Bee’s antiques coverage to four pages a week by 1963. Circulation, about 7,000 subscribers in the early 1960s, quadrupled over the years, and readership became international. In 1969, antiques accounted for an entire tabloid section of The Newtown Bee. Antiques and The Arts Weekly was launched as an independent, self-sustaining publication in 1976. Scudder Smith has managed both newspapers since 1973, when his father retired.

Organizers promise that the ADA dinner will be a lively affair, complete with celebratory toasts and probably bow ties. For tickets and further details, www.adadealers.com.