BAR HARBOR — The Sun Journal was honored Saturday by the Maine Press Association for its coverage of the mass shooting in Lewiston last October.

The newspaper was also awarded MPA’s General Excellence award for its Sunday papers, judged to be the best weekend newspaper in Maine, which is the highest editorial honor the press association gives each year to members’ print publications.

The staff was recognized with a first place award for its work in print and online on the breaking story the night of Oct. 25, 2023, a process during which the print story was updated roughly 25 times between the initial post on sunjournal.com at 8:07 p.m. and when the newspaper was sent to press at 10:30 p.m., and then updated at least 40 more times until the staff closed the story at 2 p.m. the following morning, resulting in an extensive digital report published with 48 still images and multiple videos for readers who stayed up with the newspaper through the night.

While grateful the work was recognized, Judith Meyer, executive editor of the Sun Journal, said the staff was “enormously aware during its reporting in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, during the 48-hour lockdown and, as we have seen during the months since, of the certain trauma and grief this tragedy would inflict on our readers and on our community.”

She said Sun Journal “reporters and photographers have made every effort to minimize hurt while continuing to report on the shooting, aware that every sentence we write and every photograph we take is a painful reminder to the survivors and the families of the victims.”

Staff Photographer Russ Dillingham, who was the first photographer at Just-In-Time Recreation that night, won a first place award for news video, much of which he livestreamed from the bowling alley and the Lewiston Police Department in real time.

“My beautiful city where I was born and raised will never be the same, but I feel proud that many friends, family and strangers continue to thank me for keeping them informed with accurate and timely information at such a scary time,” he said, and “with all the wild rumors and speculation raging around social media, I feel proud to have been able to help deliver timely and accurate information on multiple platforms” to thousands of people in need of that information in those early moments.

Meyer won a first place award for editorial writing for a piece published four days after the shooting titled “Every one. Every minute. Every day,” honoring the 18 people who died that Wednesday night, writing that “every single one of these people, people we knew and loved, left their lives behind while doing perfectly ordinary things with every expectation they would be returning to their homes and their loved ones.” In the piece, she noted that “any one of these 18 people could have been any one of us. And for that reason, every one of us must embrace the lives we have, the people in our lives, the places where we love to go and the things we love to do every minute of every day.”

Marla Hoffman, the Sun Journal’s managing editor/nights, won a first place award for front page design for her work on the cover of Oct. 28, “Shooter found dead,” featuring the names and photographs of all 18 victims who died, along with a report on the shooter’s body being found in Lisbon, a report of the lockdown order being lifted and another report of tractor-trailer trucks backed up at the Walmart Distribution Center in Lewiston, unable to move during the lockdown.

Photographer Daryn Slover won a first place award for a spot news image he took after the December 2023 storm that flooded Veterans Memorial Park in Lewiston, an image that showed the dynamic power of the rising Androscoggin River that broke and lifted granite stones and benches, tore apart the sandy shore and damaged the foundations of a 51mm gun from a Naval ship and an Army Jeep displayed at the park.

Slover also won “Best of Show,” which is a special photography category recognizing the best photo in the entire statewide contest, not just in a specific category.

Designer Ernie Anderson won two first place awards for page design, including a feature page with a story about gratuities, written by Staff Writer Mark LaFlamme, looking at whether readers think tipping has gotten out of hand and how COVID caused big change in the business of small change. The headline on that page, “Gratuities. Have we reached a tipping point?”, won first place in the feature headline writing category for Mark Mogensen, the Sun Journal’s managing editor/days.

Anderson won another award for page design for a page — which he did entirely in black, white and sepia tones — featuring a story about Maine’s silent film festival by Staff Writer Steve Collins, with a look at 11 black-and-white movies shot in the Pine Tree State between 1910 and 1925, including several featuring Auburn’s Holman Day.

Designer Will Tooher and former Assistant Sports Editor Wil Kramlich also won a first place design award for a Sports cover featuring a centerpiece image shot by Dillingham showing Monmouth Academy pitcher Sam Calder being mobbed by teammates after pitching a complete game shutout against Sacopee in the Class C South final in Gorham.

Collins, LaFlamme and Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Keith Edwards shared a first place award for health writing for their multipart analysis of the growing homelessness problems in Lewiston and Augusta, titled “‘Quality of Life?’ or a homeless crackdown?”

Staff writers Andrew Rice and Christopher Wheelock shared a first place award for news headline writing for “Facing turbulent times,” an investigation they teamed up on to look at poor management and oversight issues at the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport that led to serious financial woes dating back nearly a decade, made worse by Elite Airways’ insolvency and departure.

Varsity Maine Sports Editor Lee Horton won a first place award in headline writing for “Bros foes,” a headline that appeared over a story written by Sports Writer Nathan Fournier about two sets of brothers who play on opposite sides of the Lewiston Blue Devils and St. Dom’s Saints hockey rivalry.

Horton also won a first place award for his feature profile on Noah Carpenter, then a senior at Leavitt Area High School, who capped a stellar year of sports with a standout season on the mound and at the plate and was named the Sun Journal’s baseball player of the year.

And, Wheelock won a first place award in the food writing category for his feature on Bill and Susan Broadbent’s Lewiston-based Entosense, a business selling edible insects known as “the poor man’s protein,” titled “Bugs. It’s what’s for dinner.”

In addition to these first place awards, the Sun Journal won a dozen second place awards and seven third place awards for writing, photography, page design, illustration and video.