BLOOMINGTON — The Albert Lea Tribune took home 10 awards Thursday at the annual Minnesota Newspaper Association banquet.

The honors, for the Better Newspaper Contest, included a prestigious first-place award for General Excellence for daily newspapers under 10,000 circulation.

The 2015 banquet handed out awards for work performed between September 2013 and August 2014.

Tribune Sports Editor Micah Bader took home three awards. Bader won first place in the category of Sports Reporting and second place for Sports Story and Sports Photo.

“Best writing of any paper in this entry class,” the judges wrote about Bader’s entries in the Sports Reporting category.

The story that took second place was about former offensive lineman Matt Mirowski with the Albert Lea Grizzlies who signed a contract with the Sioux City Bandits of the Champions of the Professional Indoor Football League.

The judges stated Bader did a good job of getting the reader to support Mirowski.

“By the end, you hope he can achieve his dream of playing in the NFL,” the comments stated.

The second-place photo was from an Albert Lea Grizzlies football game.

Managing Editor Sarah Stultz won two awards in the category for Business Story among all daily newspapers. She won first place for a story called “Your charity dollars at work,” about the challenges people face choosing which charities to support and what is done with the donated funds.

The judges commented on the creativity of the layout of the story which highlighted the Community Chest on a Monopoly board.

Stultz won third place for a business story called “Let’s go downtown” about the positive effects seen from Albert Lea’s downtown renovations.

Both stories were printed in the 2014 edition of Progress.

The Tribune won first place for Editorial Page as a Whole. The Tribune competed against daily newspapers 10,000 circulation and under in the category.

“This section was a clear winner,” the judges stated. “It had everything we were looking for — an editorial by the paper, good layout, other editorial, letters to the editor and a smaller comic. Solid in all aspects and simple to read.”

Former Tribune graphic designer Kristin Overland won first place for Best Advertisement for dailies under 10,000 for an ad she made for the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva school district.

“I really like the personal touch ‘feel’ to this ad design,” the judges wrote.

Creative Director Kathy Johnson won third place in Self Promotion or House Ad for her ad titled Fifty Shades of Display, inspired by the book “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

“This ad will catch a lot of eyes being that it has a tie with the book that a lot of women are reading today,” the judges stated.

The Tribune won third place in Website among dailies under 10,000.