Columbia Gorge News receives 19 state awards

General Excellence — Staff

Best lifestyle coverage — Flora Gibson, “New statues arrive at Mt. Adams Buddhist Temple;” Laurel Brown, “Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue utilizes new Marine Patrol team”

Best sports story — Noah Noteboom, “Embrace Disability” and “Grads set new heights”

Best online coverage of breaking news — Staff, “Shots fired, police standoff” and “Tunnel 5 Fire”

Best editorial — Chelsea Marr, “Shooting incident raises community concerns,” and Trisha Walker, “Vote yes”

Best writing — Trisha Walker, “Bookmobile meets people where they are” / “Community Works: HRVHS program combines academics with real world skills” / “New executive directors lead Thrive”

Best multi-sponsor ROP ads — Lisa Becharas and ad staff, “Halloween events”

Best special section — Staff, Columbia Gorge Visitor Guide

Best overall advertising, non-dailies — Staff

Best single house ad — Staff

Best merchandising section — Staff, Home and Garden and Gift Guide

Best single house ad — Lisa Becharas, “Share a subscription”

Best multi-color merch ad — Lisa Becharas, The Dalles Athletic Club summer kids program

Graphic arts, best feature photo — Laurel Brown, “Bear enjoys cooling off at the watering hole”

“We offer an excellent product with a variety of news and information for a broad scope of readers,” said Publisher Chelsea Marr. “I always say, hold our paper next to any other weekly and from design to content, I am extremely proud of what we accomplish. It is not easy, and the hours we put into each story, photo and advertisement that is on our pages is tremendous.”

Marr added this is the first year Columbia Gorge News has received a Best Overall Advertising award.

“I am particularly proud of the General Excellence award because it recognizes the paper overall — news, photos, advertising, editorial content and general appearance, as well as the thoroughness of our coverage,” said Walker, managing editor. “We won the award our first year as a new publication, in 2020, but have not been nominated since. It feels good to be recognized for our hard work and takes our entire staff to achieve.”

Placement — first, second and third — will be announced at the annual ONPA conference, held this year in Redmond July 18-19.