The minds of young, possibly mischievous, boys dream up wild things on a nice spring afternoon.

Boredom sets in. Mom tells the youngsters to walk the dogs.

The next thing you know the boys have found their way to the Madison Street park. And they are no longer walking the dogs; they are swinging them.

Yes, the dogs are riding in the parks swings — the ones that have a back and two leg holes, made for babies.

Bull and Hull — the dogs — don’t mind the ride. They are still pups, and they’ll do whatever their owners want.

But the dogs are most likely squirmy and the ride probably didn’t last long. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, the whole incident was only a fleeting moment in time.

Odds are the boys would grow up and forget that they once dreamed up the idea of putting their dogs in swings.

The moment would be lost forever. But it wasn’t.

Thanks to the always-searching eyes of this newspaper’s photographer turned Web Editor Ben Hillyer, the moment was captured forever.

Ben was riding in the car with a member of our advertising staff when he directed her to stop, pull over and let him out.

He’d spotted the moment others had driven right by.

Ben — like any good photographer — had his camera handy and took a few moments to capture the perfect photo of a childish stunt.

For dog lovers such as me and for the judges of the Mississippi Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper Contest, the photo was a first-place finish.

Ben’s first was one of 16 first-place awards our newspaper staff won this weekend in Biloxi. Overall, we brought home 45 awards for news stories, sports stories, columns, editorials, photos, design, headlines, graphics and our community service.

We were chosen as the best newspaper in our division — which is composed of newspapers with a daily circulation of 9,000 to 20,000. We are on the small end of that range, while most of our competitors are on the larger end.

And cooler still to me, as the team leader of our newsroom, is that fact that every member of our staff who has worked here in the last year won an award this year.

That speaks volumes to the quality of reporters, photographers and designers who bring you your news every day.

And yes, I’m bragging on my folks. They deserve it.

We make mistakes every day. Typos happen and commas get misplaced. Sometimes we make a factual error, though we always work quickly to correct those.

But, errors and all, our newspaper is the best newspaper of its size in the state.

And even though we have countless plaques at our office from years of contests, it’s the dogs in swings that really matter.

Our job isn’t about collecting awards.

We work to tell the stories of your lives. That’s what we enjoy, and that’s why we come back to work every day.

From the mischievous boys to the mischievous politicians, we are here to inform, entertain and educate the Miss-Lou.

We grin when we win awards, but the true smile leaps across our faces when we hear from one of you that our stories or photos impacted your day in even the smallest of ways.

The stories we tell and the moments we capture are not ours at all; they belong to you. And because of that fact, an award for us is really only an award for all of you.

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.