The Pilot racked up three significant awards this year from the North Carolina Press Association.

The Pilot won second place in the general excellence category and first place in news coverage in the division for community newspapers with circulation of more than 10,000.

The Pilot's Web site, www.thepilot.com, won second place for general excellence for newspaper Web sites.

"I'm so proud of our staff," said Editor Steve Bouser. "We're already aware of what an exemplary job they do at holding a mirror up to this community we serve, but it's always good to have objective outside confirmation like this."

The awards were announced during the annual banquet Thursday night in Raleigh. Pilot Publisher David Woronoff, as president of the association's community newspaper division, handed out the awards.

The general excellence award takes into account the overall quality of the paper, which "the judges obviously feel is extraordinarily high," Bouser said

The judges said The Pilot was "a newspaper of which the community should be proud."

"The Pilot has all of the necessary bases covered for general excellence," the judges said in their comments. "Good local coverage (and) writing, and (the paper is) mechanically sound."

For the news coverage category, The Pilot came in first out of 17 entries. The judges for that award called The Pilot a "comprehensive and easy-to-use tool" for readers.

"The news coverage award recognizes the skill and initiative our reporters show in keeping up with breaking developments around here," Bouser said.

Woronoff said The Pilot takes great pride in recognition from its peers -- "but it's the recognition from our community that matters most and motivates us to put out the best paper we possibly can."

The judges called the Web site "organized" and "easy to navigate." Ryan Tuck, who is now operations manager of The Pilot Broadband, greatly enhanced The Pilot's Web site last year as online news coordinator.

"It's extremely gratifying to all the folks who work on our site to be recognized for that effort," Tuck said. "The Web is the future of this industry, and it's great to see community newspapers jumping in."

Katherine Evans can be reached at 693-2480 or by e-mail at kevans@thepilot.com.