The Santa Barbara Independent won four 1st-place awards and three 2nd-place awards at this year's Better Newspapers Contest hosted by the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) last weekend.
Judging panels of journalists and editors across the state scored The Independent in the top of its class — weekly papers with circulations above 25,000 — in the categories of Writing, Business News, Breaking News, and Education coverage.
Here are the stories that took home the gold (or, in our case, bragging rights and a few nice wall plaques):