The event, sponsored by The Kansas City Press Club, was Saturday at the Muehlebach Hotel in downtown Kansas City, Mo.

At the ceremony, The Mirror staffers won the gold awards, which are first-place plaques, in these categories: news reporting, photojournalism feature and entertainment.

Caroline Trowbridge, the newspaper’s editor and publisher, won the news reporting award for her story on a federal jury awarding former Tonganoxie student Dylan Theno $250,000 in a sexual harassment suit against the Tonganoxie school district.

News editor Lisa Scheller won the photojournalism feature category for photographs she took during Lucas Frantz’s funeral service. Frantz, a 2002 Tonganoxie High graduate, was killed last October while serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq.

And reporter Shawn Linenberger nabbed the top award in the entertainment category with his coverage of Tonganoxie resident Danni Boatwright winning “Survivor: Guatemala.”

The newspaper staff also won a silver and a bronze award in the feature story category. Scheller won the silver for her story on energy drinks, while Trowbridge earned the bronze for her piece on Tonganoxie physician, Dr. Phil Stevens, who last year practiced his 50th year in medicine.

The keynote speaker at Saturday’s press club banquet was Peter Kovacs, managing editor of the Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans. Kovacs discussed how the newspaper functioned in the days after Hurricane Katrina hit the city. He also shared how the newspaper is functioning today, roughly 10 months after the hurricane devastated New Orleans.

The Kansas City Press Club is a chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

At last year’s awards ceremony, Scheller captured The Mirror’s three gold awards in these categories: feature column, photo feature and feature story.