Idaho Education News won the Idaho Press Club’s First Amendment Award during the annual journalism banquet Saturday night in Boise.

Editor Jennifer Swindell and data and policy analyst Randy Schrader won the award for catching the Caldwell School District’s board of trustees violating the state’s open meeting law when it hired superintendent Shalene French.

The First Amendment Award “is given for work by Idaho journalists, in any medium, that advances the cause of freedom of information in Idaho in the public interest.”

Kevin Richert also earned an honorable mention in the First Amendment category for a separate story that caught the State Board of Education violating open meeting laws.

Idaho EdNews was honored with several other awards Saturday. Journalist Clark Corbin won second place for reporter of the year in the all media category, and Richert was named honorable mention for reporter of the year.

Multimedia journalist Andrew Reed won a first place award for best use of interactivity for his first day of school photo content, and Idaho Education Trends won a first place award in the special purpose website category.

A complete list of awards and winners is available online at the Idaho Press Club’s website.