The Bainbridge Island Review won 29 awards in the 2016 Better Newspaper Contest sponsored by the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association.

The Review won honors for advertising, specialty publications, writing, photography and newspaper page design in the statewide competition.

The awards were presented at the association’s annual convention, held Oct. 14-16 in Wenatchee.

Bainbridge’s weekly newspaper brought home 12 first-place awards, five second-place awards and another dozen third-place awards.

Former Bainbridge Review publisher Lori Maxim, who now works for Morris Multimedia in Georgia, was also presented with the Miles Turnbull Master Editor Publisher Award.

“I’m extremely humbled by the hard work of our staff every day, so it’s gratifying to see their work recognized for excellence in so many different areas by their peers in the newspaper industry,” said Review editor Brian Kelly.

The competition included 2,142 entries in six divisions from newspapers across Washington state. The contest period covered newspaper editions from April 1, 2015 through March 31, 2016, and entries were judged by members of the New York Press Association.

Review reporter Jessica Shelton earned three individual awards.

She won first place for best business feature story and also won first for best personality profile.

Shelton also won third place for best general feature story.

Luciano Marano won seven individual awards, including a first place in black-and-white feature photography and a first place in the black-and-white sports photography category.

Marano also placed first in the color pictorial category.

Kelly won first place in the color portrait category, and also was first in color sports photography.

In additional photography awards, Marano also won second and third places for general news photography, and a second place in best color sports action photo.

Marano notched third-place wins in general news photography and color portraits.

Kelly earned additional honors, as well, in color sports photography, with third-place awards in the action and feature categories.

He also picked up third-place awards in newspaper page design, in the best front page and best feature page categories.

The Review staff won first place for topical speciality publications with its “Celebrate Summer 2015” guide.

Leslie Kelly, a contributing writer to the Review, won second place for the Review in the category of best personality profile.

Kelly, a special sections editor for Sound Publishing, was also the editor for the award-winning “Celebrate Summer” guide.

She earned additional praise this year for stories written while being a reporter on loan to the Journal of the San Juans (second and third place for best health and medical stories; and second place for education reporting).

She also garnered second place wins for the Bainbridge Island-North Kitsap “Tis the Season” publication; a second place for the Port Orchard “Tis the Season” publication; a second place for the tourism publication Discover Kitsap; a third place for the special section promoting the Kitsap County Fair, and a first place for the 125 anniversary publication put together for the city of Port Orchard.

In advertising, the team of Marleen Martinez and Vanessa Calverley earned multiple awards.

They claimed second and third places in the full-page and half-page color advertising categories, as well as a second in small color advertising.

Martinez and Calverley were also awarded a second place in youth-oriented content.

The pair also won second place for best special section cover, for the 2016 Bainbridge Almanac.

The advertising and newsroom also won third place overall in the tourism/community guide category for the Bainbridge Almanac.

Calverley and fellow creative John Rodriguez also won a third-place award for “Senior Salute 2015.”

Calverley earned an additional third-place win for the newspaper’s ad campaign for Ace Hardware.

All told, Sound Publishing’s Kitsap News Group won 71 awards. The Kitsap News Group includes the Review, Bremerton Patriot, Central Kitsap Reporter, North Kitsap Herald and Port Orchard Independent.