Blackfoot Valley Dispatch earns awards in 2020 Better Newspaper Contest

The BVD picked up 15 awards in the 2020 Montana Newspaper's Association's Better Newspaper Contest.

The Dispatch, a Division 1 newspape with a circulation of fewer than 1250, picked up seven first-place awards, three second-place and five third-place awards.

This year marked the most awards Lincoln's newspaper has won since first entering the annual contests in 2014.

The BVD won a first place award for page design for the page featuring Lincoln High School Entrepreneur Class' Mud Run in 2019.

Hope Quay's My Smart Mouth column 'Wolves at the Door,' published July 3, 2019, earned the first place award for column writing for her look at wolf re-introduction.

"The columnist writes with passion on an issue that obviously is important to her," the contest judge noted.

Editor Roger Dey picked up a first place award for Education Coverage for his March 3 story "Return of the Geo Bee."

Dey also picked up four first-place awards for photography. An image of a large air tanker dropping retardant on the Black Diamond Fire earned an first place for Best News Photo and his image of Asa Lattin, James Gilbert and Hayden Dempster navigating a hay bale obstacle during the Mud Run earned first place in Best Sports Photo. Dey also scored a first in Best Feature Photo for his black and white image of the Rocky Mountain Model T club on Dalton Mountain Road, as well as a first place in Best Portrait Photo category for an image of fiddler Grace Christiansen warming up before the first round of the Montana State old-time Fiddler's Contest championship.

The BVD earned a second place recognition for Best Editorial with Dey's farewell to Bill Frisbee, a second in Educational Coverage for a story on the loss of POUNCE and a second in Lifestyle coverage for a story on Sherri Wood's retirement from the Lincoln Library.

Connie McCafferty earned her first award with a third place for her story on "Sun, fun and Junior High Football."

The other third place awards included the features story "Poetry in the Blackfoot"; the Lifestyle coverage of the Snow Warriors Pancake Breakfasts and the page layout for the 55th Annual Helmville Rodeo.

The Montana Newspaper Association announced the awards this year during a Zoom presentation Friday Oct. 16 as part of their virtual 135th Annual convention. The convention is normally held in June, but was delayed and reconfigured as a virtual event due to COVID-19.

Wyoming Press Association members served as judges for this year's MNA contest.