The Business Journal won two first-place California Journal Awards Saturday.

The Business Journal brought home two first-place awards and three finalist nods from the California News Publishers Association statewide journalism awards program this weekend.

The California Journalism Awards recognizes exceptional work from Golden State newspapers in various circulation categories. For weekly newspapers with circulation of 4,301-11,000, reporter David Castellon earned first in Agricultural Reporting for his February 2017 article “Foreign ag visitors weary of President Trump,” with interviews from foreign attendees of the World Ag Expo in the days following the inauguration of President Trump.

“A well-written, well-organized article with multiple interviews about an important subject affecting local & international agriculture, with a good presentation,” according to a comment from a California Journalism Awards judge.

Joe Verduzco of The Business Journal’s production department also took first place in the category of Special Sector Cover for the 2017 covers of the Book of Lists, Profiles in Business and Made in the Central Valley supplements.

“The only entry that showed real creativity were The Business Journal covers. Each gave an indication of the contents by the choice of images & use of type & text on the cover,” according to a judge’s comment.

For the first time, The Business Journal was also a finalist in the General Excellence category.

“The Business Journal is a comprehensive look at business issues and people in the community. The stories are well-written, and the paper has a good ad/news content ratio,” according to a judge’s comment.

The Silicon Valley Business Journal took first place in the General Excellence category.

Reporter Edward Smith won third place in the Enterprise News Story category for his piece “Power of the pop: Retail model less about sales, more about buzz.”

Editor Gabriel Dillard also took third place in the Online Breaking News Coverage category for the story “Former Angels pitcher buys Fresno auto dealerships.”

The honors were awarded during the California News Publishers Association 2018 Press Summit in Sonoma on Saturday.