NEWRY – The Portland Press Herald and the Lewiston Sun Journal were named Saturday as Maine’s daily and weekend Newspapers of the Year in the Maine Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.

The VillageSoup Times of Camden and Rockland won the Newspaper of the Year award among weeklies with less than 5,000 circulation, while The Republican Journal of Belfast won the top honor among the state’s larger weeklies.

The winners were announced Saturday night during the MPA’s annual Fall Conference at the Grand Summit Resort Hotel and Conference Center at Sunday River. Papers were judged by members of the Minnesota Press Association on issues published in the year beginning April 1, 2004, and ending March 31, 2005.

The Press Herald was named the daily Newspaper of the Year for the second year in a row and the third time in four years. Second place in the competition went to the Sun Journal and third went to the Bangor Daily News.

The Sun Journal’s Sunday paper was named Newspaper of the Year in the weekend division for the third time in five years. The Maine Sunday Telegram finished second and the Bangor Daily News was third.

VillageSoup Times, in just its second year in the Better Newspaper Contest, won the Newspaper of the Year award in the Weekly 1 class for the second year. The York Weekly took second place and The Camden Herald was third.

Among weekly papers with 5,000 circulation or more, The Republican Journal was named Newspaper of the Year for the first time since 1996-97. Second place in the competition went to The Courier-Gazette of Rockland and third place went to The Ellsworth American.

Also awarded Saturday night were the MPA’s top individual honors.

Stephen Betts, editor of The Courier-Gazette, was named Maine’s Journalist of the Year. Jennifer Doucette of the St. John Valley Times in Madawaska was honored as Advertising Person of the Year, and George Reichert of The Times Record in Brunswick was named Circulation Person of the Year.

The two-day MPA conference drew nearly 200 people to Sunday River.

On Friday night the association inducted four new members into its Hall of Fame: Ray Gross, former editor and publisher of The Courier-Gazette; David Lamb, a University of Maine graduate who was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times for 34 years; Steve Riley, who was a reporter and editor for Guy Gannett’s Portland and Waterville newspapers for nearly 40 years; and the late Lillis Towle Jordan, who was publisher of the Bangor Daily News from 1947 to 1955.