The Daily Inter Lake won three first-place awards over the weekend in the 2014 Better Newspaper Contest sponsored by the Montana Newspaper Association.

The awards were presented Saturday night at the association’s annual convention in Butte. The seven weekly newspapers in the Hagadone Montana newspaper group all won awards as well, including the Whitefish Pilot, which was named best weekly in its circulation category.

Daily Inter Lake senior reporter Jim Mann won first place in feature writing among Division 5 large daily newspapers for his “Survivor’s Story” about a man who lived to tell the tale of falling into a glacial crevasse in Glacier National Park.

The Inter Lake — which competes in Division 5 against the Missoulian, the Great Falls Tribune and the Billings Gazette — took two of the three awards for feature writing. Features editor Lynnette Hintze and photographer Patrick Cote won third place for a New Year’s Day package called “Saving Grace” about a miracle mom and baby.

The Inter Lake won 10 awards overall in the contest.

Mann also won third place in editorial writing for editorials on gun control, the IRS scandal and the government shutdown.

Inter Lake managing editor Frank Miele won first place for best headline writing for three headlines he wrote for the daily law-enforcement roundup, including one that read “Hey, the (expletive) cops can hear you!” The judge wrote that “this entry went 3-for-3 on making me want to read the story.”

Graphic designer Brenda Ritter won both first and second place for Best Newspaper Promotional Advertising. First place went to her full-page ad featuring the winners of the Inter Lake’s “Your Life Covered” photo contest. Second place went to her ad featuring the Inter Lake staff wearing pink to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Sports reporter Joe Terry won third place for Best Column for his story “Fischer makes last throw count” about Flathead alum Luke Fischer’s last javelin throw of his college career. This was the first year sports columnists competed directly against news columnists in the contest. The judge called Terry’s approach “a little unexpected, well-written” and “a great effort.”

Former Inter Lake entertainment editor Kristi Albertson won third place for page design for her This Week in the Flathead feature, “The new first lady of jazz,” about singer Diane Schuur. The judge praised Albertson for “use of several small photos with interesting shapes” and called it a “beautiful layout.”

Photographer Brenda Ahearn won third place for Best Lifestyle Photo for her work documenting swing dancing in the Flathead in a feature called “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that Swing.” The judge “loved the vibe and emotion in the shot.”

The Inter Lake staff won second place for Best Overall Website. Production manager Ken Varga redesigned the website extensively over the past year. 

Here are the top awards won by the weekly newspapers owned by Hagadone Montana:

The Whitefish Pilot won four first-place awards in addition to its General Excellence award for best Division 2 weekly. Editor Matt Baldwin was honored for Best Front Page, Best Sports Story and Best Feature Photo. The Pilot also won the award for Best Overall Website in Division 2.

The Bigfork Eagle won a first-place for Best Feature Photo and that photo by Caleb Soptelean also was honored as the Mel Ruder Photograph of the Year, competing against all the photo winners in all weekly and daily divisions. Soptelean, a former Daily Inter Lake reporter, took a beautifully contrasted shot of someone looking at cracks in a wall near the west-side tunnel on Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park.

Hungry Horse News reporter Chris Peterson won first place for Best Feature.

The Lake County Leader in Polson won first-place awards for Best Page Design and Best Combination Print and Online Ad.

The Clark Fork Valley Press in Plains won first place for Best Lifestyle Photo for a shot of roping at Homesteader Days.

The Mineral Independent in Superior won five first-place awards: Best News Story, Best Front Page (the newspaper also won second place and third place in this category), Best News Photo, Best Combination Print and Online Ad (sweeping all three awards in this category, too) and Best Niche Publication.

The Western News in Libby won a first-place award for Best Enterprise Journalism for its story about the county overtaxing property owners. Publisher Matt Bunk won first place for his editorials and the paper also took first for Best Sports Photo.