Kennewick — The Tri-City Herald received a second-place journalism award for its nine-day series on the effects of the Hanford layoffs.

The Herald’s second-place Debby Lowman Award for Distinguished Reporting of Consumer Affairs award and other C.B. Blethen Memorial Awards for distinguished newspaper reporting were announced today at the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association in Portland.

Tri-City Herald reporters and photographers took a closer look at what the 2,000 layoffs at the Hanford nuclear reservation would mean to Tri-Citians and our economy in a nine-day series called, “Hanford Layoffs: The Ripple Effect.”

All the stories in the series are on our website at tri-cityherald.com/hanfordlayoffs/

Tri-City Herald reporter Ty Beaver won a first-place award in the investigative reporting category, under 50,000 circulation, while working at the Herald and News, Klamath Falls, Ore., for his story, “The Betty Lou Parks Case.”

Former Herald reporter Jacques Von Lunen won a second-place award in enterprise reporting, under 50,000 circulation, while at The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash., for his story, “Funding basic Ed isn’t so basic.”