ALBUQUERQUE — The Santa Fe New Mexican's reporters and photographers won several awards in the 2009 Better Newspapers Contest. Winners of the contest, sponsored by the New Mexico Press Association and New Mexico Associated Press Managing Editors, were announced Saturday.

The Albuquerque Journal and the Clovis News-Journal won the overall General Excellence awards for their daily newspapers divisions. The Taos News and Sangre de Cristo Chronicle took the General Excellence awards in the weekly newspaper divisions.

The Albuquerque Journal also won APME's top awards for Story of the Year and Photo of the Year. The winners were selected from the first-place winners in the newswriting and photo categories. Journal reporters T. J. Wilham and Hailey Heinz won Story of the Year for their coverage surrounding the death of a little boy whose body was buried at an Albuquerque playground. Photographer Jim Thompson won Photo of the Year with an image of a group of runners.

The Associated Press Member of the Year award went to the Las Cruces Sun-News. The award is presented each year to the AP member newspaper that best exhibits the news-sharing spirit of the AP cooperative.

The New Mexican's awards include: Anne Constable, second place, news writing; Julie Ann Grimm, second place, feature writing; Pancho Morris, first place, sports writing; Tommy Trujillo, first place, sports column; Jane Phillips, second place, feature photo; staff, first place, supplements and special editions; Dale DeForest, first place, color advertising; Dale DeForest and David del Mauro, second place, house advertising; Delilah Howard, first place, classified advertising; Sandra Baltazar Martínez, first place, Spanish language, sports writing.