The Daily Inter Lake captured 15 awards in the 2018 Better Newspaper Contest sponsored by the Montana Newspaper Association.

The awards were announced at the association’s convention on Saturday night in Billings.

Three major news projects developed by the Inter Lake won awards:

—The newspaper’s “Black in the Flathead” series, which ran over two weeks last winter, won two awards: third-place for Best Lifestyle Coverage and first-place for Managing Editor Frank Miele’s feature about Zip Rhoades, who lived in the Flathead for just one year in the early 1950s, but made such an impact that he was never forgotten. Series honors were shared by Miele and Features Editor Lynnette Hintze, who developed and wrote the project together.

—The Inter Lake’s month-long series on the 50th anniversary of Flathead Valley Community College won third-place for Best Education Coverage. That award was shared by Lynnette Hintze, Frank Miele and former Inter Lake staffers Katheryn Houghton and Andy Viano.

—Our October recap of the brutal 2017 fire season called “Summer Scorched” won third-place as Best Newspaper Special Section. The section was designed by Regional Editor Matt Baldwin with the help of writers and photographers from the Hungry Horse News, Lake County Leader, Western News and Mineral Independent, as well as the Inter Lake.

Top individual winners for the Inter Lake were Baldwin with four awards in page design and Shawn Withrow with four awards in advertising design.

Baldwin won first and third place in Best Sports Page Design for pages he created for Mary Cloud Taylor’s feature on roller derby and Mackenzie Reiss’s feature on a strength-training gym.

Baldwin also won a second-place for Best Front Page for his reverse-type design to illustrate a story on the Waterton-Glacier dark-skies initiative, and a third-place award for his Montana Life cover featuring the work of Whitefish artist Sunti Pichetchaiyakul.

Withrow won first-place for Best Online Ad for an Izaak Walton Inn promotion. He also won second-place awards for Best Color Ad to Sell Merchandise for a McGough and Co. ad and for Best Newspaper Promotion for an ad explaining the Inter Lake’s multi-medial marketing. The Snappy’s 70th anniversary ad campaign won Withrow third-place under Best Marketing Campaign.

In other awards:

—Reporter Patrick Reilly won first-place in the Mark Henckel Outdoor Writing Award for his examination of the politics behind the declaration of the mussel emergency in 2016.

—Photographer Aaric Bryan won a second-place for Best Feature Photo for a picture taken at the House of Mystery in Coram.

—Assistant Editor Mackenzie Reiss won a third-place for Best Sports Feature for her story “The Beast Inside” about a local strength-training gym.

The Better Newspaper Contest is divided into five categories based on newspaper circulation. The Inter Lake competes against the other six biggest dailies in the state.