Well, here I am on Monday morning writing my column feeling a whole lot of tired but at the same time a whole lot of pride in my staff for the job they are doing for our readers.

It’s National Newspaper Week and I attended the annual convention of the National Newspaper Association, held this year in St. Charles, Mo., just north of St. Louis.

I went there on Thursday afternoon after attending the memorial service for reporter Bob Burns’ wife, Linda. I missed the opening day’s festivities and meetings, but I was brought up to speed on the main things I needed to know by my good friend, Bob Sweeney, publisher of The Villager newspaper in the Denver area.

There was a noticeable upturn in enthusiasm about the future of community newspapers among the attendees and the speakers.

“How’s your paper doing?” was a common question overheard in the hallways. Most of the answers were positive, with many saying they were seeing a return of former advertisers who were not pleased with the results they were getting in other media.

And they credited local news as the reason newspapers are seeing an upturn again. People need to know what’s happening in their communities and no one provides that service as well as a community newspaper.

The speaker at Friday’s breakfast session was Ron Powers, a noted historian on Samuel Clemens or Mark Twain as he is more commonly known. Powers credited Twain as the person responsible for giving America its common language.

Before the release of novels like “Huckleberry Finn,” most novels were written in the language of British royalty, he said.

Powers also commented Twain said, “People who read newspapers are informed. People who don’t are generally misinformed.”

Saturday morning was the Better Newspapers Awards Breakfast. I knew going in that Editor Mike Scharnow’s photo of the flooding of last year’s Octoberfest had received a second place award and Ryan Winslett had also won a second place in the Best Education/Literacy Story category. The newspaper was also honored with a second place in the Best Use of Color category.

I thought that was it and was casually watching the slides go by when I was surprised to hear my name being called to the stage. They were announcing the General Excellence awards.

These are the overall awards, which are judged from three pre-selected dates. Coincidentally, one of the dates selected for the competition was one that included our 40th anniversary special edition. We received two awards for that special in the state competition.

Well, I am proud to say that we received a third place in the 3,000 to 5,999 circulation category competition. That’s third place in the entire nation!

We have received general excellence awards on the state level before, but this is the first time we have won at the national level.

Judges remarked, “This is another impressive community newspaper that offers its readers much. The use of color throughout the pages makes this paper pop out. There are great stories and photos strategically placed throughout the newspaper to draw in the readers.”

First place winner in our circulation category was the Northwest Iowa Review in Sheldon, Iowa, and second place went to the Mount Desert Islander in Bar Harbor, Maine.

I had a big smile on my face, I’m told, as I walked up to the stage.

You can bet I did.