elephant wins 3 Westword web awards. Thanks to who? You.

Denver Westword Web Awards at Casselman’s in Denver.

Boulder’s Tweety Got Back also honored. Merton rocks house.

File this one under “you know it’s gonna be a banner night when they put your business up on the big screen with the half-apology that ‘you’re gonna see a lot more of elephant journal tonight…so much you’d think we were giving them a handjob’ or something like that.”

Many more awesome crowd photos at Westword’s Slideshow:

Westword, the alternative-yet-huge-popular-bigtime Denver weekly, held their first annual #WebAwards, or Web Awards for you non-tweeting ungeeks, last night in Denver. No business or individual won more than one award—except for elephantjournal.com and your shameless Waylon Lewis, who took home three awards—and four if you count Drew Levin’s Boulder Fire photos that we were the first news site to feature.

We went down with some loud, rowdy lovely friends and were happy to see some of our dear friends take home wins, one for an image that was featured first on elephant (unless you count that little site, Flickr). With huge thanks for the honor to Westword, and Upslope for the free local green microbrews, and with congrats to Tweety Got Back and big ups to Merton…click over to Westword for the rest.

Best Political Blog: ElephantJournal.com
Sustainability to yoga, ElephantJournal.com covers more than just politics and it’s updated often, making it a go-to for Denverites with a wide variety of interests.
Nominees: theironmike.com, blog.ariarmstrong.com, coloradopols.com, coloradoindependent.com, coloradowins.org, completecolorado.com, facethestate.com, blogs.denverpost.com/thespot, peoplespresscollective.com, politicscolorado.blogspot.com, huffingtonpost.com/denver, truthpluslies.com.

Business:
Best Use of Facebook to Promote a Business: Elephant Journal on Facebook.
Updated often — some may complain its too often — EJ’s Facebok presence certainly is powerful. Nearly 30,000 fans can’t be wrong.
Nominees: Andrew Hudson, Atlas Purveyors, Camelflage, Denver Browns, Dumb Friends League and Paramount Denver.

Best Shameless Self-Promoter: Waylon Lewis — @elephantjournal
“No one works harder than Waylon Lewis when it comes to slipping links into your lunch. The man is a driven communicator and would ordinarily be exiled from the state, but his vehicle of expression (Elephant Journal) actually wants to save the world. Elephantine exemption!”
Nominees: Adam Leech, Andrew Hudson, Carissa Passerella, David Booker, Erika Napoletano, John Baxter, Leah Charney, Patricia Sommer, Peter Black.

Images, some from Westword Slideshow, some mine, some from fellow honoree Heather Capri:

I leave you with…Merton, youtube sensation.