Last weekend, the staff of The Winchester Sun won a variety of awards at the Kentucky Press Association Excellence in Journalism contest, but the recipients extend far beyond the newspaper’s walls.

The contest seeks to award some of the best examples of journalism — photography, news reporting, feature writing, editorial and opinion writing, design of pages, special sections and sports coverage — from throughout the year.

Each year, the contest is judged by press associations from other states, and while we must admit the results are subjective, we were very proud to learn our newspaper had earned third place overall in its division, beating several other larger papers.

Our staff won awards for things like a feature on RS Guitarworks celebrating a milestone business anniversary, coverage of a fatal fire at an apartment complex, a collection of photos from Little League opening day and a photo of Clark County’s Distinguished Young Woman Lacee Duncan, among others.

We commend our staff for the dedication to producing great news content, but we would be remiss not to give much of the credit to our community.

A community newspaper is really only as good as its community allows it be.

It is our job to document the history of Winchester and Clark County as it happens.

We thank you for letting us tell your stories — the good and the bad.

Without a community that promotes and supports local businesses, celebrates the accomplishments of its young people, gathers for events like fairs, festival and parades, we wouldn’t have the good news to share.

Without law enforcement, local government and a judicial system that work as transparently as possible, we wouldn’t be able to share the stories about crime, trends and other happenings that affect our community.

And without our readers, subscribers and advertisers, we wouldn’t be in business.

So, while we celebrate our awards, we must also celebrate those who made it possible —Winchester and Clark County and each of you reading this editorial.

This one is for you!