I'm flagging these because they are so well-deserved: the Strib took home two Society of American Business Editors and Writers awards Wednesday for 2009 coverage. Placed in the "Giant Newspaper" class with the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, the Strib won a Breaking News award for its "Petters Found Guilty" coverage, and won in the Enterprise category for "Wasteland," Chris Serres' exposé of rotten exurban land development.

SABEW named three winners in each category and classification; the Strib was joined in both of its wins by the Times and the Journal. To give you an idea how heady the competition was, the co-winner in "Wasteland's" category was another Minnesota-based story, "The Burger That Shattered Her Life," Timesman Michael Moss's incredible and sickening tour through America's lax meat inspection system. 

"Wasteland" was no slouch, one of the most vivid portrayals of the housing bust, a portrait of unregulated banks the fueled the boom. (A shout-out here to Brian Peterson whose photos and videos captured these decadent, near-ghost towns.)

As for the Petters story, the Strib prioritized coverage of what seemed to be, for a brief time before Madoff, the nation's biggest-ever Ponzi fraud. In its awards story, the Strib credited David Phelps, Liz Fedor and Jennifer Bjorhus and video work by Aimee Blanchette.

Sadly, the business section's supervising business editor, Eric Wieffering, left the paper voluntarily in September, six months after Serres' story ran; Fedor also left on her own in January. The paper is currently searching for Wieffering's replacement, though assistant editor Dan Browning has been a constant (while bird-dogging other financial shenanigans.)

Yes, those losses hurt and true, SABEW awards have one more onion-like layer, a "Best of the Best" designation given out March 20. Nabbing those trophies will be tough for the locals. But in an age of cutbacks, it's important to remember the Strib still pulled off top-quality work, and applaud them for it.