PHOENIX — The Sierra Vista Herald/ Bisbee Daily Review took home 17 awards in the Arizona Newspapers Association’s Better Newspapers contest.

It was a really good night for the photo staff as Mark Levy and Beatrice Richardson swept the multimedia storytelling category with Levy taking first for his “The Miners” video, Richardson taking second for her feature on “Carlos” and Levy placing third for his video of Dorothy Dietz.

“It was a really great thing to see us sweep this part of the awards,” Publisher Phil Vega said, “Both Mark and Beatrice have been devoting a lot of effort to make good video pieces that compliment our print stories.”

Reporters Adam Curtis, Shar Porier and Billy Hess, along with design by Bethany Strunk took first place in best sustained coverage for their series of stories on the San Pedro River.

Curtis also took home a first place award in the best news feature category for his story titled, “Carlos”. Richardson took a first place feature photo layout award for the photos that accompanied “Carlos” and she took a second in the same category for her layout titled “Hope for Darian”.

Richardson won third place in best news photo for her “Erosion Control Bridge” photo, while Levy took third in the best sports photo category for “Buena Boys Seek First Win”.

Senior Reporter Bill Hess took third place in the best column category for his piece, “50 years later, I still remember, Nov. 22”.

Staff was honored with a third place in Page Design Excellence and also in Best Use of Photography.

The feature section on Dorothy Dietz was honored with a second place finish in the special sections/supplement category.

In the advertising category, the newspaper won first places for its Classified section and for its Public Notice presentations

The Herald/Review received a second place in online static advertising for its Lawley ad campaign, and a third place in online animated advertising for its Sierra Toyota ad campaign.

The awards were presented at two different events during the ANA’s annual convention in Phoenix. The Herald/Review competed in a category with other daily newspapers with daily circulation under 25,000. These include such newspapers as the Casa Grande Dispatch, Havasu’s Today’s News-Herald, Arizona Daily Sun, the Yuma Sun and the Daily News-Sun.

The winning videos can be found here:

The Miners:

Carlos:

Dorothy Dietz: