The Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper received 14 awards – including General Excellence Digital Weekly 1 for the third straight year for the Boothbay Register – at the Maine Press Association’s annual Fall Conference and Better Newspaper Contest held at the Atlantic Oceanside Hotel and Event Center in Bar Harbor Oct. 21.

Reporter and columnist Suzi Thayer received four awards. She won first place for her Food Story/Feature on Morse’s Sauerkraut in Waldoboro, published in December 2016. Thayer also took first for her Environmental Story on Maine mussels, published in November 2016. Her Arts/Lifestyle Feature, “Will somebody please get this woman a plane,” a story about Caroline Canning of Westport and her efforts on saving dogs, took second place. Her fourth award, a third place, was for her Local Column, On Eating and Loving Food.

Reporter Bill Pearson brought home two awards. He took second place for his News/Sports Headline, “Roundabout vote driving people to polls,” and third place for Sports News Story, “Boothbay football opts for club status” published in August 2016.

Assistant editor and Wiscasset reporter Susan Johns also received two awards. She took second place for her People Photo, “Waiting for Santa,” and third place for her September 2016 Spot News story, “The whole house shook: Lightning strikes Wiscasset home.”

Assistant/A&E editor and reporter Lisa Kristoff took second place in the Business category for her September 2016 story, “An unexpected return to comics,” about Dawn and Gary Guzzo of Atomic Studios in Boothbay Harbor and their return to working with Marvel Comics. She also won a second place award, with former production employee Mike Marr in the Supplement/Special Section category, for the four-page commemorative - design, content and layout by Kristoff/production,  Marr - on the Fishermen’s Festival, published in April 2016.

The advertising staff received two awards: a second place for its Sponsorship Page, “Let’s Go Seahawks,” published in February 2017, and a third place for Best Supplement Cover for the “Summertime 2016” supplement featuring a photo by Mike Leonard of the schooner Eastwind sailing into the harbor at sunset.

Reporter Gina Hamilton took third place for her Courts Story, “Hatch arraigned on 22 counts,” published in August 2016.

Editor Kevin Burnham, a former MPA president (2007-2008), stepped down from the current MPA Board of Directors after serving a total of four two-year terms on the board and a total of nine years. Lynda Clancy, editorial director of the Pen Bay Pilot, the online newspaper also owned by Maine-OK Enterprises, Inc., is joining the MPA board for the first time.

The annual day-long conference included seminars and the MPA Hall of Fame ceremony, where longtime Ellsworth American and Mount Desert Islander Publisher Alan Baker and retired Bangor Daily News Editor Mark Woodward were inducted.