The Faribault County Register was honored with five awards at the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.

The announcement came at an awards banquet Thursday night, Jan. 29, at the annual convention of the state’s press association.

The Register won a first place award for its special section, ‘Our Heroes.’ The newspaper also won second place awards for ‘Best Institutional Advertisement,’ ‘Best Advertising Campaign,’ ‘Best Circulation Promotion,’ and ‘Portrait and Personality Photography.’

The judges, who were previous award winners from Iowa newspapers, called the ‘Our Heroes’ special section “outstanding, with a front page that catches the eye and quality material inside.”

The award for Institutional Advertisement was given for the ad praising local firefighters during the Kerry fire. The judges said, ‘Great job of people helping people. We are seeing this a lot today with floods and tornadoes.’

The Advertising Campaign award was for ‘My Business is Your Business’ series of ads in conjunction with the Blue Earth Area Chamber of Commerce. It featured a different business person in each ad.

The judges said, “The ad campaign is not only a great way to get to know the people who run them. With such nice people, I guess I’ll have to start shopping in Blue Earth!”

The judges had praise for the Leap Day Subscription Special the Register ran last February, as they named it a winner in the circulation promotion category. “Great idea to take advantage of the special day. Good creativity with the frogs and the day.”

Register staff writer Tony Acosta was honored with a second place award for a photo he took at the Easter Egg event in Winnebago last year, showing a youngster crying when getting a hug from the Easter Bunny.

The judges comments were; “This photo could not have been planned and it definitely captured the personality. Photography is part luck, part skill and part timing. All three were used in the making of this photo.”

Register Publisher Lori Nauman had high praise for the staff for winning the awards.

“We had many people involved in the projects which won; it was a group effort,” she said.

Nauman and Register Editor Chuck Hunt were presented the awards Thursday at the Sheraton Hotel in Bloomington.

“We were a bit surprised,” Nauman said. “They had told us we had won four awards, but it turned out to be five.”

Last year the Register won three awards. The staff has consistently won awards each year at the convention.