The Grand Forks Gazette won a first-place honour at the 2019 Ma Murray Community News Awards in Richmond on Saturday.
Kathleen Saylors was awarded gold in the spot news photograph category for her local coverage of the floods that captivated the nation last year.
Related: ‘Catostrophic’ flooding will echo for years
Her photograph captured two residents of Grand Forks embracing after a dike burst in Ruckle, one of the hardest areas hit by the May 2018 floods.
“The photo does an admirable job of personalizing a big issue and showing how it affected individuals,” said the judges. “That made it a storytelling photograph imbued with emotion, which is an elusive but valuable goal in news photography.”
Saylors called her coverage of the floods the most challenging assignment of her life.
“Watching my friends, neighbours and community go through that experience was incredibly difficult, and I know I can’t begin to understand the pain felt by so many people in Grand Forks, pain they continue to feel as the one-year anniversary approaches,” said Saylors.
It is her first news award.