Michelle Morrow's winning entry.

The Nashville Ledger was named best overall newspaper for its circulation category Friday by the Tennessee Press Association and the University of Tennessee.

Columnist Joe Rogers won two first place awards for Best Personal Column (Nothing is black and white when discussing race) and Editorials (Remember when government intrusion was a bad thing, Militant Moonies might not be the ideal new neighbor and TN Health officials have some nerve doing their jobs.

Michelle Morrow won for Best News Photo (Nashville history not easily recreated), and the newspaper won a first for Best Coronavirus Coverage by Catherine Mayhew (Who’s paying for COVID? All of us), Kathy Carlson (Getting more shots in arms, Will vaccine hesitancy extend to little arms? and No vaccine, no job? Not yet) and Tom Wood (Another COVID toll: $2 billion for funeral costs).

This is the second top award for the Nashville Ledger in five years.

The Ledger’s sister publication, the Hamilton County Ledger, took two category prizes for Coronavirus New Coverage and Best Business Coverage, all stories written by David Laprad.

The Tennessean, Kingsport Times-News, The Standard Banner (Jefferson City) and Brownsville Press won the top general excellence awards in the other four divisions.