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We are celebrating The Port Arthur News readers choice winners in our Best of 2021 contest.

More than 2,500 people participated in the voting stages and tens of thousands of votes were cast.

In all, 214 winners were chosen by readers of The Port Arthur News and visitors to panews.com.

A special section listing and honoring the winners publishes today (Sept. 29).

We moved to a state-of-the-art online voting platform in 2021 that is “best of breed” in online voting systems for Best Of contests. This allowed for more secure voting and automatic tabulation of votes. The new-and-improved voting system is mobile-friendly and was easier to use.

Choosing between the top three nominated businesses per sub-category made the voting phase easier and faster. Winners were contacted this month after the voting ended.

The winners of Best of 2021 will be celebrated throughout the rest of 2021 and can also be viewed at panews.com/contests.