Staff report

Times-Sentinel Newspapers won 11 awards in this year’s Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence. Newspapers across the state learned of their awards last Thursday.

The Times-Sentinel weekly newspaper won seven awards, and the Conway Springs Star and Argonia Argosy won four awards including two related to its coverage following last spring’s tornados in Sumner County.

The Times-Sentinel won first place in headline writing, best newspaper website and best house ad (ads that promote the paper itself). Second place awards were given in best use of photos, best sports pages and best grocery ad for Kwik Shop Market. Managing editor Travis Mounts won third place in best agricultural story for a piece titled “Harvest heroes: Neighbors come together following farmer’s death.”

The Times-Sentinel competes in non-daily division II, which is for mid-size non-daily newspapers, based on circulation.

The Star-Argosy won first place in best online video feature for a story about the Viola Lions Club sausage supper, and won first place in best story/picture combination for its coverage of the Sumner County tornados. Publisher Paul Rhodes and Mounts contributed stories and photographs and Tiffany Struthers produced the pages.

Mounts won second place in news photo for a photograph of the damage at Calvin Zerener’s farm west of Conway Springs.

The paper also won third place for best front page.

The Star-Argosy competes in non-daily division I, which is for small-size non-daily papers.

“We’re honored that our peers thought so highly of our work. Our staff members strive every day to produce the best newspapers that we can, and this recognition helps validate those efforts,” Mounts said. “We hope our readers see the effort that goes into the papers each week, and we appreciate their help with stories and their continued support.”

Entries covered the 2012 calendar year. The Sun-Times was not entered because it was not yet part of Times-Sentinel Newspapers. Work in the WestSide Story is not eligible for competition because it is a monthly newspaper.

This was the third consecutive year The Times-Sentinel has won the best website category.

“Over the past few years, we’ve strived to have our website be a complimentary medium with breaking news and additional news, photographs and video. The competition in the category is strong,” Mounts said.

Although work is ongoing, the website has recently been expanded to include individual sections for The Times-Sentinel, the Star-Argosy, the Haysville Sun-Times and the WestSide Story. The main page at tsnews.com now serves as a landing page for all papers in the Times-Sentinel Newspapers family, with links to the sites for each individual paper. It will be a few more weeks before the work is completed.