SAN DIEGO - The North County Times won three dozen awards Wednesday night from the San Diego Press Club, a countywide media trade group.

The newspaper picked up nine first place prizes in news, photography, design and Web-related categories. More than 300 awards were given out at the club's annual awards ceremony in San Diego. Winners were selected from nearly 1,000 entries. Best of show winners included Channel 10 News, The San Diego Union-Tribune and KLSD Radio.

The full list of winners is available at nctimes.com.

First-place winners from the North County Times included:

• the newspaper staff for breaking coverage of the Paramount condominium fire in downtown Escondido in January;

• Gary Warth for a series on local churches' policies on sex offenders;

• Ruth Marvin Webster for a story about a Pauma Valley architect;

• Waldo Nilo for his photos of the burning Paramount complex

• Jamie Scott Lytle for a photo essay about a San Marcos woman with a deadly skin disorder;

• Irv Erdos for his humor column "Ham on Wry;"

• The opinion staff for an editorial on Escondido's winter homeless shelter;

• Kathy Magerkuth for a feature layout design called, "Show Time;"

• the newspaper staff for its Web profiles of people with odd jobs.

- Contact staff writer Noelle Ibrahim at (760) 740-3517 or nibrahim@nctimes.com.