David Badders, art director for The Northern Colorado Business Report and its Wyoming edition, The Business Report, has won second place in a Western regional contest for illustration.

Badders won the award in the Best of the West contest, which honors outstanding reporting, writing, design, photography, graphics and illustration from newspapers and television stations throughout the West. The competition covers 13 Western states, with entries competing regardless of size or frequency of publication.

This year’s contest drew 2,000 entries from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Badders tied for second place — out of 66 entries — in the illustration category for his October 1996 work that accompanied an article examining whether the Northern Colorado retail market was overbuilt. The illustration depicts “a female shopper overwhelmed by her options,” the Best of the West judges noted.

“The illustrator clearly was working hand-in-hand with the story editors to convey tightly a sense of being overpowered by development,” the judge wrote. “To (make a reader) see yourself in an illustration is really an accomplishment.”

It’s Badders’ second Best of the West award. Last year, he took third place for an illustration of a figure bewildered by technology.