Seattle Times journalists won three awards in this year’s Best of the West contest.

Corinne Chin and Erika Schultz won first place in video storytelling for “‘Not a death sentence’: HIV-positive women find acceptance,” which profiles Nkosi’s Haven, one of South Africa’s best-known centers for mothers living with HIV and for orphans.

“Stunning photography, seamless audio, great sequencing. The story of Lindiwe is extremely compelling,” the judge wrote, referring to a 23-year-old woman who believes she was infected with HIV when she was sexually assaulted as a child.

The Times also placed third in Online Presentation, with the judges honoring “30 Days” about a refugee family new to the U.S.

“I loved the unique format that The Seattle Times used in ’30 Days’ to tell the story of a refugee family’s first month in America,” the judge wrote. “The reader is fed bits of the story along with vivid photos, maps and videos."

Education Lab won third place in explanatory reporting for a series about school funding. The four-story package included Claudia Rowe’s two stories about why Massachusetts, which is very similar to Washington state, gets such better results in its public schools.

“The Seattle Times’ Education Lab, the judge wrote, “is a great resource for readers on all aspects of school funding.”

Best of the West was founded in 1987 to reward journalistic excellence and promote freedom of information. It operates a journalism contest for newspapers, magazines and news websites in the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming that quickly became the region’s most prestigious awards competition with about 1,000 entries each year.