Chimes recently won nine College Newspaper Contest awards from the . The total bested last year’s haul of seven awards for the newspaper.

“I would say it was a pleasure and a surprise to win so many because they actually took away categories this year—and they only allowed one entrant per person per category,” said Stephen Mulder, last year’s editor-in-chief of Chimes.

Chimes collected first place awards for its online edition,  a news story titled “Student Sits Next to Terror Suspect on Christmas Flight” by Emma Slager;  feature page design by Katie Hall and Jackson Hall for “ABC…Grand Rapids” and best original cartoon for “Insomnia” by Lauren Kelly. The paper earned second place honors in investigative reporting for “Festival of Faith and Writing Celebrates 20 Years” by Matthew Koh and for “Falling Leaves” an in-house promotional ad by Mulder.

“About half of them were won by people who had graduated, and the other half of them were won by students who are still on staff,” said current editor-in-chief Amy Surbatovich. “I’m really proud of the work they all did.” Surbatovich is optimistic that the honors will keep coming. “I totally hope that we are going to beat Stephen Mulder’s score,” she said, laughing.

“I hope she does,” Mulder responded.