SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - There are five more awards adorning the walls at the Yellowknifer office following the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association's 2009 Awards of Excellence.

Reporter Cara Loverock's story ''This is rumours,' Yakeleya says of sex allegation" was deemed the pick of the crop in the Best Local News Story category.

"Hear a nugget of information and start digging," the judge commented in a written note on the winning story. "That's how good reporting is done and it's exactly what Yellowknifer reporter Cara Loverock did to earn first prize in the Best Local News Story competition.

"Hearing rumours about an RCMP investigation into a possible sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl by a Northwest Territories cabinet minister, Loverock tracked down the family of the alleged victim and confirmed the rumours (of the investigation). She spoke with the Mounties, the minister and other and nailed down the story.

"When the Yellowknifer broke the news (on July 30, 2008), two things happened: the premier stripped the MLA (Norman Yakeleya) of his cabinet portfolios ... and the RCMP laid charges (of sexual assault)."

The charges stemmed from an alleged incident that dates back to March 2007.

"It's impossible to know whether the case would have come to light without reporting work of Loverock, but clearly she and the Yellowknifer performed perhaps the media's most important role: holding the powerful to account," the judge added.

Yellowknifer was also number one for Effective and Original Use of Colour in Advertising at the awards ceremony, held earlier this month. Its Benjamin Moore ad "jumps off the page" with its mixture of colour and white space, the judge commented.

In the Best Feature Story category, Mike W. Bryant's account of the city's lack of public washrooms and the ensuing mess in one particular alley in Yellowknife earned third place. "The city's shame," which appeared in the Oct. 22, 2008 edition of Yellowknifer, dealt with public defecation through "explicit photos and language to match ... controversial it is bound to be, but this feature copes frankly with everyone's universal need to 'go,' human dignity, public health, community frustration, bureaucratic sloth and not-in-my-back-alley attitudes," the judge wrote.

Reporters Andrew Livingstone and Herb Mathisen took third place in Excellence in Education Writing for their story "No answers," which took an in-depth look at proposed board mergers. The judge praised the entry for its level of detail and for providing a thorough history of Yellowknife's school boards. The reporters did an "outstanding job of educating the citizens of Yellowknife and of preparing them with the facts to consider the proposed school boards merger including financial background."

A third-place winning feature for Excellence in Environmental Writing, "Collision course," by reporter Lauren McKeon, examined the chances of a plane striking a bird. The Yellowknife dump, like many landfill sites, attracts numerous scavenging birds, and its close proximity to the airport made the city's intention to expand the dump a controversial issue. The judge commended the article for its wealth of information and appealing photos.