The Renton Reporter received five awards this past weekend during the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association Annual Convention, including a second-place General Excellence award, as part of the statewide Washington Better Newspaper Contest.

The General Excellence award honors the top three overall newspaper in every circulation class. The Renton Reporter is in the contest’s top circulation class.

Judges cited the Renton Reporter’s use of photos and graphics and noted our “strong local coverage” and the way the editorial page dealt with “hot issues.”

“We are very proud of the General Excellence award,” said Publisher Ellen Morrison. “This is a testament to the great reporting done every week by our reporters, Tracey Compton and Dean Radford and our editor Brian Beckley.”

“We work very hard to provide the best coverage we can about a wide mix of issues and events throughout Renton and it is nice to be recognized for those efforts,” said Beckley.

In addition to the General Excellence award, Beckley received a first-place award for “Best General Feature Story, Long” for his “Firefighter for a Day” piece, a first-person account of a day’s worth of firefighter training called “gripping and informative” and “top-notch reporting” by judges.

Beckley also received a second-place award in the “Best Government Reporting” category for his piece “County’s purchase of mobile home community means moving day is coming,” about residents at the Riverbend Mobile Home Park. Judges cited Beckley’s follow-through to get the personal stories of those affected.

The Renton Reporter also received a first- place award in the “Special Events/Festivals Special Sections” category for the Seattle International Film Festival Renton guide and a third-place award in the “Best Tourism/Community Guide Special Section” category for our 2014 Residents Guide, produced by the staff and graphics artist Kae Lamberton.