The recent Best of the West journalism contest honored several alts, including the Houston Press, Phoenix New Times, SF Weekly and Denver’s Westword, which each picked up first-place honors in various categories.

The Houston Press took home first-place in two categories, Growth and Environment Reporting and Long Form Feature Writing. Individual winners were Chris Vogel and Craig Malisow.

Writer Alan Prendergast from Westword won second in Growth and Environment Reporting and took first in Arts and Entertainment Writing. Staff writer Joel Warner took third in Sports Reporting.

SF Weekly‘s Peter Jamison won first-place for sports reporting and Monica Alonzo of the Phoenix New Times earned first in Immigration and Border Reporting, beating out the Arizona Republic.

The Dallas Observer and L.A. Weekly took second and third in the Long Form feature category. L.A. Weekly also took third place in Business and Financial Reporting.

Dallas Observer took third in the A&E Writing category and second in Page Design, giving the paper three awards in total. Individual winners were Daniel Rodrigue, Alexander Flores and Jim Schutze.

Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly won second-place in the Special Topic Column Writing for his ¡Ask a Mexican! columns.