As loyal readers of this blog know ... the boss, the ad director and I headed to beautiful Portland, Ore., last week for the annual convention of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A good, educational time was had by all, and while we were there, we picked up some awards that are worth noting.

In the annual AltWeekly Awards contest, the Tucson Weekly nabbed four awards—putting us among the Top 10 alternative newsweeklies in the country in terms of the number of awards won.

Tom Danehy won first place in the Column (less than 60,000 circulation) category for “A Jury’s Strange Decision May Let a Murderer Back on the Streets in a Decade” (March 2, 2006), “The UA Showed a Lack of Heart When It Revoked Sarah Low’s Music Scholarship” (April 27, 2006) and “An NCAA Committee Shows That Efforts in the Name of Gender Equity Can Go Too Far” (Dec. 21, 2006). This is the second time in three years that Danehy has earned an AAN award for his column.

Margaret Regan and John Peck each won second-place awards, in the Immigration (less than 60,000 circulation) and Food Writing/Criticism (less than 60,000 circulation) categories. Regan took her third AltWeekly award in the last five years for “Back to Mexico” (Sept. 7, 2006). Peck earned his first AltWeekly award for “The Modern Maitre d’” (Jan. 26, 2006), “Cheese With Care” (July 13, 2006) and “In the Kitchen” (Dec. 14, 2006).

Finally, we won third place in the Web Site Design category (less than 60,000 print circulation) for the second year in a row.

Congrats to Tom, Margaret, John Peck and everyone who contributes to our Web site, from John Banks and the good folks at DesertNet to corporate Web dude Sean Fitzpatrick to the loyal commenters on our blog.

For more on the awards, click on his here link.