First place awards

The Dalles Chronicle’s coverage of the Substation Fire, above left, won top honors at the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association’s 2019 Better Newspaper Contest. Also winning a first place award was the photo essay “First Foods ceremony lives on,” above right.

In it’s final year of publication as a daily newspaper, The Dalles Chronicle earned two first, one second and two third place awards in the 2019 Oregon Newspapers Publishers Association’s Better Newspaper Contest, announced Thursday, July 19, at the annual ONPA convention in Gleneden Beach, Ore.

Coverage of the Substation Fire published July 21-22 under the headline “The flames were like lava” received first place for spot news coverage in the under 10,000 circulation daily division. Named in the award are editor RaeLynn Ricarte, reporter Neita Cecil and photographer/editor Mark Gibson.

Coverage of this house fire photograph by Tom Peterson took third place for best news photograph in the small daily division of the 2019 Bette…

In the Company of Excellence, a special publication of The Dalles Chronicle, took a third-place award at the 2019 ONPA annual newspaper contest.