Success doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

In fact, success is a pretty hard goal to meet on just about any platform or business.

That’s why I was particularly pleased about the awards The Observer received in the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.

For the third year in a row The Observer reached double digits in awards, clinching awards for reporting, writing, photography, editorial and page design. We received six first-place awards, three second-place awards and two third-place awards.

The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association revealed the winners Sept. 28-29 at Salishan Coastal Lodge in Glenden Beach.

To achieve such results and accolades from our peers — the contest was judged by the Texas Press Association judged the contest — is gratifying and a testament to the hard work all of our reporters and editors do on a daily basis.

The wins are especially significant because we’re a significantly smaller newsroom than we were when I first arrived in La Grande in 2012. Cutbacks and turnover in the journalism business isn’t new and is one of those cost-of-doing business situations faced by every newspaper or news organization in America.

Yet we have been able to adjust to that reality, overcome the turbulence that is second-nature to losing and gaining new people. Our staff has been able over the past year to achieve optimal levels of performance consistently.

I believe that consistency shows in the news product we put out. Our product, day in and day out, shows we excel in capitalizing on our strengths and creative innovation.

We take our jobs seriously. We take our goal — to inform our readers — seriously.

All of those awards would not be possible though without one key ingredient: Hard work.

The Observer newsroom strives daily to put in the time, the hours, needed to ensure the product we deliver is one that readers will want. We work hard to maintain our ethos, to promote innovation while developing short-term and long-term strategies to push us into the future of technology and journalism.

I am proud of that hard work I see the newsroom do every day. Yet the newsroom success isn’t a singular happening. Every facet of The Observer, every department, is committed to our readers and to our customers.

The awards are a wonderful way to illustrate that hard, complicated work has a payoff. That payoff is a great product with good news stories and a recognition by our peers that we are doing the big things — and a lot of the little things — right.