Blackfoot Valley Dispatch photo earns Photograph of the Year award

A Blackfoot Valley Dispatch photograph of a falling bronc and rider – and the crowd's shocked reaction - earned recognition as the 2019 Mel Ruder Photograph of the Year at the 134th Annual Montana Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Awards ceremony June 8 in Big Sky.

BVD Editor and Publisher Roger Dey shot the image of Blackfoot, Idaho bronc rider Cooper Clemons during a wild ride last year at the Annual Helmville Labor Day Rodeo.

"I almost didn't enter the contest this year. The entry fees are getting pretty steep for a paper as small as we are, but we had a couple things I thought might stand a chance at an award. That photo was one of them." Dey said. "I was happy we placed in several categories, but when I saw one of my photos had actually been selected as Photograph of the Year I was pretty stunned. There's a lot of competition out there, when you consider all the best photos from the weeklies as well as the dailies are in the mix."

The Photograph of the Year award is named in honor of Mel Ruder, who founded the Hungry Horse News in 1946 and won Montana's first Pulitzer prize for his tireless photographic coverage of the catastrophic floods in 1964.

The photo placed first in the Best Sports Photograph category for Division I papers. It was one of eight submissions from the BVD to place in six categories in Division 1, which includes newspapers with a circulation of fewer than 1500.

Dey also picked up the second-place award in the Division 1 sports photo category for a photograph of preschoolers running in a 25-yard dash at last year's Lincoln School Track Day.

Other finishers included:

Second place in Best Lifestyle Coverage (despite the long-winded headline) for "No shortage of snow this winter, but for Lincoln businesses snowmobilers remain scarce."

Second place in Best Continuing News Coverage for 'Ted K,' a series of stories on the filming of 'Ted K', a movie about Ted Kaczynski filmed on location in Lincoln.

Second place in Best page Layout and Design for "A snowy farewell," a page featuring images after the first heavy snowfall of 2018.

Third place in Best Lifestyle Coverage for "Shifting Perceptions," a look at Lincoln's efforts to be more welcoming to cyclists and hikers.

Third place in Best Sports Feature Story for "Keeping Practice on Track," a story on the challenges of practicing for track meets when there's still three feet of snow on the ground.

Third Place in the Mark Henckel Outdoor Writing Award for "Restoring Life to the UBMC," which looked at efforts to restore vegetation to the Mike Horse and upper Beartrap Creeks following the removal of the Mike Horse Dam, tailings impoundment and other contaminated mine waste at the headwaters of the Blackfoot River.