The Cullman Times earned 22 awards in the Alabama Press Association competition for news, advertising, printing, and online publishing, including a third place award for the combined “General Excellence” category.

“The entire staff at The Times should be very proud of this recognition by our peers,” said Times Publisher Bill Morgan. “The awards verify what many of our readers and advertisers already know — this is a great staff of hard-working people who never stop trying to produce the best multimedia products we can.

“I’m very proud of the staff and very happy for the recognition they’ve received. It’s well deserved,” Morgan added.

The awards were announced Saturday night at the APA’s annual convention. The Times competed against newspapers across the state.

Awards for the The Times’ news staff included:

Best Lifestyle/Family Pages, First Place; Best Business Story, First Place for “A new start” detailing recovery from tornado damage (Trent Moore); Best Local Economic Coverage (Trent Moore, David Palmer); Best Local Education Coverage (Trent Moore); Best Local News Coverage (Times News Staff); Best Editorial, First Place for “Weapons we don’t need” and Second Place for “What about the muffin top” (David Palmer); Best Layout and Design, Third Place (Amanda Shavers-Davis and Staff); General Excellence, Third Place (Times Staff); Best Sports Single Event Story, Second Place for “4 for Andrew” (Rob Ketcham); Best News Photo, Second Place for “20 years later, officials finally break ground on Duck River Dam” (Amanda Shavers-Davis); General Web Excellence (Times Staff); Creative Use of Multimedia, Third Place for music festival coverage (Amanda Shavers-Davis).

The Times also grabbed a third place award for Best Presswork.

Advertising awards for The Times included:

Single Ad Over 1/2 Page, Black & White, Third Place (Kara Stephens); Classified Display Ad, First Place for “Celebrate Cullman” by Jessic Ulmer and Debbie Miller; Classified Display Ad, Second Place (Times Advertising Staff); One-Time Special Section, Third Place for “Rebuild: One Year Later” (Kara Stephens and Staff); Presentation of Online Advertising, Third Place for “Find and Save” platform (Times Advertising Staff); Innovative Online Advertising, First and Second Place (Times Advertising Staff); Online Revenue Builder, First Place for SEC Digital Network (Times Advertising Staff).