For several years now, Adam Borowitz has been kicking ass and taking names here on The Range with his Tucson food coverage.

He helped birth Tucson's food-truck scene. He's broken more restaurant stories than I can count. He's been entertaining as hell.

And sadly, in a month or two, he'll be moving on.

Therefore, Tucson Weekly and TucsonWeekly.com are looking for a food-news writer/reporter. This scribe will write the weekly Noshing Around column, and will be expected to contribute regularly to this here website (approximately 5-8 posts per week). Pay is $80 per week, with extra dough for extra contributions (to our twice-yearly food issues, the Best of Tucson®, etc.).

A passion for Tucson's food scene, a willingness to scoop the competition, and a flair for writing are all must-haves. If you don't care for food, are afraid to look in windows of under-construction restaurants, or can't write a compelling entry in, say, the Food-Truck Diaries, don't apply. Really. Just don't.

Send a cover letter, a resume, and four to six writing samples to [email protected] no later than Wednesday, Oct. 17. No stupid questions, please. (Smart ones are welcome.)

For the third year in a row, the Tucson Weekly was honored with one of the Arizona Newspaper Association’s big awards in the annual Better Newspaper Contest.

The Weekly earned the General Excellence prize for non-daily newspapers with a circulation of more than 10,000. The Weekly earned the same honor in 2010, and was the Non-Daily Newspaper of the Year in 2011.

The Weekly advertising side also earned general-excellence honors.

In total, the Weekly editorial side took home 29 awards, including nine first-place honors. The contest covered work done from May 1, 2011, through April 30. The results were announced on Saturday, Sept. 29, at the annual ANA convention.

In the ANA’s advertising contest, the Weekly earned six awards—including four first-place prizes.

The editorial awards (all in the category of non-dailies with a circulation of more than 10,000):

• In the newspaper-wide (non-individual) editorial awards, the Weekly won first place for Departmental News/Copy Editing Excellence; and Page Design Excellence.

• The paper nabbed second place for Best Newspaper Website; Community Service/Journalistic Achievement; Reporting and News Writing Excellence; and Special Section (for the Best of Tucson® 2011).

• The Weekly won third place for Editorial Page Excellence.

The Weekly’s 21 individual awards:

• The Weekly swept the Investigative Reporting category. Tim Vanderpool won first place for “Defending the Innocent” (May 19, 2011) and second place for “Tactical Terror” (Nov. 24, 2011). Leo W. Banks earned third for “Arizona Burning” (June 30, 2011).

• The Weekly also swept the Best Column: Analysis or Commentary category. Tom Danehy nabbed top honors for “Pima Community College’s Admissions Changes Deserve a Hearty Round of Applause” (Sept. 29, 2011). Renée Downing took both second and third place, for “The GOP’s War on Planned Parenthood and Contraception Has Given Obama a Huge Boost” (March 29, 2012) and “The Greed of the Health-Care System Rivals the Greed of the Banking System” (May 26, 2011), respectively.

• The staff took first place for Best Sustained Coverage or Series for the Jan. 5, 2012, issue, which covered the anniversary of the Tucson shootings on Jan. 8, 2011.

• Tom Danehy won first place for Best Sports Column, for “One Year Into the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s ‘Reorganization,’ We Have a Mess” (Dec. 22, 2011).” Irene Messina won third place in that category for “Around Jennifer Higgins, Women Weightlifters’ Stereotypes Fall Apart” (Nov. 17, 2011).

• Vanderpool won first place in the Best News Feature Story category, for “The Mayor of Fourth Avenue” (April 5, 2012).

• Jim Nintzel and his reality-journalism competition, Project White House, which encouraged everyday folks to run for president, won first place in the Enterprise Reporting category.

• Josh Morgan won first place for Best Sports Photograph for a picture he took of UA gymnast Katie Matusik (“The Birth of the Pac-12,” Aug. 4, 2011). He also took home second place for Best Feature Photo Layout for his photo essay “Real Refuge” (June 2, 2011).

• Speaking of “The Birth of the Pac-12”: Danehy won third place for that piece in the Best Sports Story category.

• Weekly scribes took home two awards in the Best News Story category: Mari Herreras won second place for “Questionable Hires” (April 19, 2012), while Vanderpool earned third place for “The Smoking Gun” (Sept. 15, 2011).

• Weekly writers also earned two awards in the Best Column: Feature or Criticism category: Ryn Gargulinski nabbed second for “In Southern Arizona and Beyond, Pigs Get No Respect” (June 16, 2011) while Randy Serraglio earned third place for “A Tucson Artist Uses Experiences From His Bi-National, Bi-Cultural Life in His ‘Narco Nation’ Works” (Oct. 27, 2011).

• Photographer Zachary Vito won two awards: second place in the Best Feature Photograph category for his picture of Jeffrey Scott Brown (“Surviving and Thriving,” March 1, 2012); and third place in the Best News Photograph category for his picture of Gabrielle Giffords with “Goodbye for Now” (Jan. 26, 2012).

• Finally, Bilal Muhammad won second place in the Best Multimedia Storytelling category for “Inside Al’s Barber Shop” (The Range, June 29, 2011).

Here are the Weekly’s other advertising awards:

• The staff earned first place for Best Classified Section.

• First place in the Best Black-and-White Ad category, for Asian Spa and Massage, went to Alan Schultz.

• Greg Willhite and Stephen Meyers won first place in the Best Color Ad category for Sundance Kid.

• Willhite and Jim Keyes won top honors in the Best Online Ad—Animated category for Tui-Na.

• Jill A’Hearn won second place in the Best Newspaper Promotion Ad series category for “We Have an App for that.”

• Schultz earned third place in the Most Effective Use of Small Space category for Eddie’s Cocktails.

Arizona’s small newspapers ruled the day (or at least the contest), nearly sweeping the biggest contestwide awards: The Yuma Sun was named the Daily Newspaper of the Year, while the Arizona Capitol Times followed in the Weekly’s footsteps as the Non-Daily Newspaper of the Year.

Bill Hess of the Sierra Vista Herald (a paper which, like the Weekly, is owned by Wick Communications) was named the Daily Journalist of the Year. Non-Daily Journalist of the Year honors went to Cindy Yurth of the Navajo Times.

The Non-Daily Photo Journalist of the Year is Dave Brown, of fellow Wick papers the Arizona Range News/San Pedro Valley News-Sun. Oddly, the award was not given in the daily category.

Alexis Bechman of the Payson Roundup won Story of the Year honors in the non-daily category. Rob O’Dell nabbed the sole big award that went to a large daily newspaper: The current Arizona Republic reporter won the daily Story of the Year award for work he did at the Arizona Daily Star.

For those of you have been waiting to find out what the best things in Tucson are, we've got you covered.

This week's issue is the 26th annual Best of Tucson®, where we'll be announcing the best that the Old Pueblo has to offer as decided by both our readers and our staffers.

But we know that many of you hate waiting — you DEMAND to know where you should be going to get great Chinese food, jewelry, books and tortillas, and you need that information today.

Well, we've got your back there, too. In the lead up to the official Thursday release of BoT 2012, we're leaking bits of the best on our Facebook page. Interested in seeing what's there and finding out how to get more results? Then make your way over, and we'll do our best to satiate you 'til the full issue is released later this week.

[Facebook—Tucson Weekly]

Hey Weekly Rangers, I'm David Mendez.

You may remember me from such Range posts as "Chuck Norris' Family Claims Obama Re-election Will Bring 1,000 Years Of Darkness," or "Geraldo Rivera, Semi-Officially U of A's Most Embarrassing Alumnus?" Earlier this year, I interned with this fine publication, where The Powers That Be were impressed enough to ask me to take care of The Range as They searched for someone to replace departed Web Producer and Range Overlord Dan Gibson.

As it turns out, I'm that someone.

What you've seen over the past few weeks is much of what you'll be getting in the future: a potpourri of news, politics and the arts; stories about Tucsonans doing awesome things; criticism of those who deserve it; dumb jokes; and the usual top-quality posts from the Weekly's fine lineup of staffers, contributors and interns.

On top of that, we've got a number of fun changes coming down the pipeline — the most prominent being the forthcoming launch of Tucson Weekly's yet-to-be-named music blog (mentioned here and here) — which you'll be learning more about in the coming weeks.

But remember folks: I'm here as much for you (and the glory of blogging!) as you are for me (and the chance to yell at someone on the internet). If there's something you're itching to see, hear or read about, please mention so in the comments. Even better, send an email to either our mailbag or to me directly.

Thanks for giving me the chance to be here, folks. Now, let's have some fun.

For some reason, I started my time here on The Range with a post about the Insane Clown Posse, so it seems to make as much sense as anything else to end my time here with an embedded video from one of the group's thoroughly terrible cover tracks from the bonus album Smothered, Covered and Chunked, out today. You probably shouldn't press play. It's really awful, but I try to keep some sort of narrative thread through my work.

Anyhow, it's been an exciting 673 days and 2446 posts for me here at the Weekly, but tomorrow I'll be somewhere else, and in a few weeks, someone else will be the proverbial captain of the ship. A sincere thanks to nearly all of you who left comments, shared our posts on Facebook or Twitter, who entered contests, or who mentioned that they enjoyed something I wrote.

In some ways, writing for a living online has robbed me of some of my ability to have human emotions about my work, but there have been some great moments for me here and I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of people who give me great hope about the city I live in. Then again, all of that is generally balanced by someone leaving a comment suggesting that I "shove a bat up [my] ass."

I won't miss waking up to some guy leaving fifty comments in all caps about how the city of Tucson killed his dog, Suki, the snarky remarks from the typo police, or people who feel the need to comment on posts about a concert that the band mentioned sucks, but tomorrow I'll probably see an amusing news story about robots or hear about something cool happening in town that I'll want to share and I won't really have a place to do so. It'll be weird, but I'm sure the internet could also use a break from my opinions.

Most of all, thanks to everyone I've worked with here, both the staff in the office and everyone who contributed to The Range. See you around town.

Congratulations to us, I guess, for winning Best Blog Initiatives in Classes C & D Combined in the Local Media Association's annual Community Website Contest [link to a PDF] for The Range. The judge or judges commented "Lots of variety, they have fun with it, they don't take themselves too seriously, it's breezy, brief and easy to read ... downright enjoyable."

Thanks to the Local Media Assocation, the judges from the Missouri School of Journalism and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, and everyone who contributed to The Range during the judging period. Yay for winning things!

I readily admit our website isn't perfect, which is why we're always working on improving the functionality and design, moving things around and trying new things ahead of a forthcoming full redesign. But still, the search can be kind of wonky, some of the pages get a little ragged at the bottom, and there's always a list of things I want to find time to work on. Still, while I think TucsonWeekly.com largely does what its supposed to, as the web producer, I'm always willing to hear out suggestions of what we can do better.

However, a quick note to "Dave," who left me a message on my voicemail yesterday: calling me and telling me how you can't find a list of concerts on our "piece of shit" website and suggesting we hire a high-schooler so that we have "someone who knows what they're doing" isn't terribly helpful at all. I appreciate that you think that we're Tucson's community newspaper and I guess I'm sorry that we disappoint you, but hey, if you can't find where we keep the concert listings on our website, here's a step-by-step guide:

1. Go to TucsonWeekly.com, but I imagine you figured that part out.

2. Click on the "MUSIC" tab on our toolbar...I used MS Paint to illustrate where to go:

3. Under the "MUSIC" tab, click "Live Music Calendar (New)" It says new, because it is.

4. Then, shazam! There's our music calendar, with shows across town and the ability to listen to music by the groups performing. Sorry to break it to you, but Hoobastank canceled tonight's show, but that frees you up to see the B-Side Players and the Jons at the Rialto, so it all works out.

How easy is that? Almost easier than picking up the phone and dialing a number to leave a rude, anonymous voicemail! Hope that helps, Dave! I would have called back to walk you through the process personally, but you didn't leave a number for some reason. Anyhow, thanks for visiting TucsonWeekly.com!

The AltWeekly Awards will be handed out at the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Convention in Detroit early next month, and one of our own is among those nominated. Since 1,108 entries were received from 90 member publications, it really is an honor to be nominated, like Renée Downing was for her column writing this year. Read the columns that attracted the attention of the judges, below:

COLUMN (POLITICAL) circulation under 50,000

East Bay Express: Cops Charging Overtime to Clubs; Marcie Hodge Loses, Again; and The Absent Police Chief by Robert Gammon

Jackson Free Press: Hazardous Civility; Immigrants vs. Profit; and And the Good News Is... by Tom Head

Monterey County Weekly: Reefer Madness; Shared Sins; and Shut 'Em Down by Mary Duan

Tucson Weekly: Tax the Rich; Greed; and Occupy and Economics by Renee Downing

The Tucson Weekly took home five awards this year in the Arizona Press Club’s annual contest—including a first-place award for Margaret Regan in the Arts Criticism category.

The results of the awards, for work done in 2011, were announced Saturday, May 19, at The Duce in Downtown Phoenix. In the contest, the Weekly competes in the Metro category, along with all of the state’s largest newspapers, including The Arizona Republic, the Arizona Daily Star and the Phoenix New Times.

Regan—the dean of Tucson arts writers who is widely regarded as the state’s top arts scribe—won two awards, including the aforementioned Arts Criticism first-place, for a selection of her 2011 arts reviews. About Regan’s work, judge Ben Waterhouse remarked: “Regan’s admirably jargon-free essays show both an impressive descriptive ability and a strong awareness of the greater cultural context in which the art exists. Not many visual art critics are capable of both.”

Regan’s other award came in the Arts Reporting category, in which a selection of her work took home third place.

Tom Danehy nabbed second place in the Sports Reporting category (behind only The Arizona Republic's investigation of the Fiesta Bowl scandal) for “Rez Ball” (March 3, 2011), his report on the love of high school basketball in Arizona’s Native American communities.

Leo W. Banks earned the third-place honor in the Immigration Reporting category for “Digging for Dollars” (April 7, 2011), his report on drug tunnels in Nogales.

Finally, Mari Herreras won third place in the Social Issues Reporting category (behind two Phoenix stories) for “Family Portraits” (Pride, June 16, 2011), her report on the struggles that nontraditional families are having in Arizona.

Craig Harris, of The Arizona Republic, was named the Virg Hill Journalist of the Year, in part for his aforementioned Fiesta Bowl-scandal coverage.

Other big awards went to Nick Oza of The Republic (Arizona Photojournalist of the Year), Mike Rice of the Arizona Daily Star (Arizona Designer of the Year), Beatrice Richardson of the Sierra Vista Herald/Bisbee Daily Review (Arizona Community Photojournalist of the Year) and Marley Shebala of the Navajo Times (Arizona Community Journalist of the Year).