Welcome to the first installment of a brand-new monthly feature on the blog, Citizen Shoutouts!

Each edition of Citizen Shoutouts is an opportunity to say thank you, to put the spotlight on folks in the PuzzleNation community who contribute to the world of puzzles and games.

And in our inaugural edition, I’d like to highlight a few intrepid puzzlers who regularly make their presence felt across our social media feeds.

As many of you well know, we have a recurring feature on Facebook and Twitter, the Crossword Clue Challenge. Every weekday, a word from that day’s free puzzle for the Penny Dell Crosswords App is selected, and we use it to test the puzzly skills of our followers on social media.

Not only does it highlight the clever cluing and expansive vocabulary you can expect from our app puzzles, but it gives members of the PuzzleNation readership a chance to show off their chops, filling in the blanks Wheel of Fortune-style and revealing each day’s answer.

Over on Facebook, we have a number of devoted solvers who regularly accept the Crossword Clue Challenge.

On any given weekday, you’re likely to see correct answers from PuzzleNationers Diane Wood, Sherri Strayer, and Mary Hayes, alongside fellow puzzlers Francis Ichihara and our two resident Crossword Carols, Carol Dawn Whittaker and Carol Tucker!

And I just wanted to take a moment today to thank them for their enthusiasm and their involvement in the game. It always brings a smile to my face to see their names pop up in our feed, alongside the new solvers trying their hand at the CCC for the first time.

But Twitter also has a Crossword Clue Challenge master who deserves a shoutout.

If you follow the CCC on Twitter, you’re bound to have seen one name pop up again and again. No matter how crafty the clue, no matter how many or how few letters I provide as a starter, one solver stands head and shoulders above the rest.

His name is Joshua Heckert, and he definitely merits a hearty round of applause for his puzzly skills and a thank you for accepting the Crossword Clue Challenge as often as he does. Ever since he first followed our Twitter account months ago, he has been a CCC contributor, and he rarely, if ever, misses a day. That enthusiasm certainly merits a Citizen Shoutout!

All of these folks, my fellow puzzlers, help make PuzzleNation one of the best puzzle communities on the Internet today, and I’m proud to highlight them in our first Citizens Shoutout post.

But what about next month? I’m glad you asked.

In the future, I’d like to take suggestions from my fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers for those we highlight in each month’s post.

It could be a puzzler or designer who inspires you, a constructor who challenged you or surprised you with a puzzle, or someone who did something kind in a puzzly way.

Maybe you have a favorite local game shop where you meet other puzzlers, or that introduced you to a favorite game.

Maybe you’d like to give a shout-out to an escape room you think others would enjoy, or to someone who went above and beyond to make a puzzly experience truly memorable.

You can submit your suggestions for the next Citizen Shoutouts post on Facebook, on Twitter, or in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you.

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