The last 365 days have been good for the Hartselle Enquirer.

This past weekend, we saw just how much that was true.

We were honored with several awards from the Alabama Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.

To start it off, the Enquirer received third place in Best Public Service for our coverage of the athletic facilities at the new Hartselle High School.

We then took second place in the following categories: Best One-Time Special Section, Best Classified Display Ad, Best Photo Essay, Best Niche Publication, Best Signature Page, Best Presentation Of Online Advertising, Best Online Advertising Campaign, Best Online Revenue Builder and Best Innovative Online Advertising.

We have to thank the Hartselle football programs for one of those awards.

The special one-time magazine “Our Time” about the Hartselle football championship season was the second place Best One-Time Special Section.

If our Tigers hadn’t done their job and won a state championship, there was no way we could have won that award.

However, the awards we are most proud of are our first place awards.

Specifically, they came in the following categories: Best Lifestyle/Family Pages, Best Classified Page or Section, Creative Use of Multimedia and General Web Excellence.

Our Lifestyle page has been a key part of our newspaper for a long time. If it wasn’t for your help in giving us story ideas for this page, there’s no way we could have won this award.

When you put your classified ad in the newspaper, isn’t it great to know that you are running in the best classified section among weekly newspapers like us?

We also thank each and every one of you who watched our online presentation of Hartselle Candidate Forum last year.

That won the category for best creative use of multimedia.

And speaking of the Internet, we again have the top website in our classification in the state. We appreciate you for visiting our website each day.

We know there are things we could do better, but we’re working to improve those aspects.

We are proud of the awards that we received, but these awards are a reflection of you, our readers and advertisers. There’s no way we could do this without you picking up the newspaper each week or investing your money in advertising with us.

So, I would like to say thank you.

Brent Maze is the managing editor of the Hartselle Enquirer.