L’Observateur’s received nine awards, including four for first place, in the Louisiana Press Association’s 2009 Better Newspaper Competition.

Awards were presented Saturday at the association’s annual convention, held this year in Lafayette.

Among the first place awards won by the newspaper was the coveted General Excellence award, which judges the overall quality of the product’s editorial and advertising components.

L’Observateur competed in the LPA’s Division 5, which includes all newspapers published two to four times per week.

The newspaper also won first place in the Best Front Page category and for Best Overall Sports Coverage, second place for Best News Coverage and honorable mention for Best Special Section.

Robin Shannon won the paper’s other first-place award in the Best Continuing Coverage of a Single News Event category for coverage of the parish’s tap water filtration system.

Other awards were:

• Best Sports Story, Ryan Arena, third place and honorable mention; and

• Best Feature Photo, Robin Shannon, honorable mention.