Current and former members of The Columbian’s news staff were honored Monday in a multi-state journalism competition sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists.

The contest was open to news organizations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska and sponsored by the Western Washington Pro chapter and the Oregon Territory chapter of SPJ. It covered work published in 2018.

In the large newspapers category, current and former staffers won six first-place awards and 12 runner-up awards, including runner-up in general excellence.

Among first-place award winners, Alisha Jucevic was honored for best photo portfolio and best photo essay and Nathan Howard was honored for portrait photography and sports photography. Merridee Hanson was honored for graphics and illustrations. Dave Magnuson was honored for page design.

Among runner-up awards, the staff of The Columbian was honored for general excellence for editions published on March 22 and Sept. 16, 2018. Education reporter Katie Gillespie, working in cooperation with Dahlia Bazzaz and Emily Eng of The Seattle Times, was honored for social issues reporting and short-form feature news reporting.