By Mariden Williams | [email protected]

Back in May, Riverton City officials launched the “Best of Riverton Photo Contest” with the goal of having residents capture, through photography, the very best the city has to offer. More than 120 residents submitted photographs, which will be used to tell Riverton’s story in the city’s future marketing and communications efforts.

“We were sure happy with the winning photos,” said Riverton Communications Director Casey Saxton.

The contest, which ran through Aug. 3, was part of Riverton officials’ overarching campaign to increase community participation and involvement.

“We’ve recently adopted a vision statement: While preserving our past, citizens, families, businesses and leaders unite in building a community where we can live, work and play. And those are our categories: live, work and service, and play,” said Saxton.

One overall winning photograph was selected from all the submissions, as well as a winner from each of the three categories. The judging committee members were not able to see the names of the various photographers, which led to one local photographer winning prizes in two separate categories.

“Picking the Right Club,” by Riverton resident Denise Johnson, took first prize, earning Johnson a $300 award.

“The overall winner was perhaps the hardest to choose,” Saxton said. “We had some really great photos competing for that, including the category winners, but this one was really the standout from the committee’s perspective.”

Resident Jacob Shamy took the two $100 prizes for both the live and work/service categories, with his two photos “Sunset Flowers” and “Friday Night Fun.” Resident Jenifer Miller’s action shot “Riverton Baseball” won the play category, also with a $100 prize.

“These were all just taken with an iPhone, weren’t they?” joked Councilmember Brent Johnson, as the winning photographs were revealed at a city council meeting on Sept. 4.

The winning photos will be hung, with attribution, in City Hall and posted on the city’s social media accounts. 

“Citizen involvement is a priority for the city,” said Councilwoman Tricia Tingey in an official city press release. “We want residents to be able to have a hand in telling Riverton’s story by participating in the photo contest.”