It’s award season. The Readers’ Choice awards season, to be exact.

The Washington Daily News’ second-annual Readers’ Choice awards has arrived, and for the next two days, readers can nominate their favorite businesses or professionals for a chance for the spotlight.

The Readers’ Choice campaign is exactly that — the readers of The Washington Daily News choose their favorites. Readers can find a full-page ballot scattered with more than 130 categories to choose from in tomorrow’s paper, or have the opportunity to vote online. Click HERE to nominate and vote for your favorites.

David Singleton, the Daily News’ advertising director, believes Readers’ Choice brings the opportunity for development. It encourages friendly competition between local professionals and in turn, could push each of them to become better, he said.

“It’s a great opportunity for the county to get behind local businesses and promote a competition between those businesses to be the best,” Singleton said.

There are seven categories including Favorite Brag, Favorite Transportation, Favorite Education, Favorite Food and Beverage, Favorite Services, Favorite Professionals and Favorite Shopping. Readers can nominate a favorite place to grab a morning cup of Joe, a favorite place to bring a date, a favorite photographer, favorite principal and many, many more. Singleton emphasized that readers should try to nominate local businesses. With 130 categories, it can be overwhelming.

“We know it can be daunting, but we offer a great array of businesses and professionals to give many people the chance to shine,” Singleton said.

Three gift cards to Sheetz worth $100, $75 and $50 will be given out to three participants at random who completed at least 75 percent of the ballot. After the nominating process ends tomorrow, the top-nominated businesses will be announced on July 29, and voting will begin shortly after.

“This should be fun. There are no losers, because it emphasizes the ‘shop local’ theme we are always promoting in Beaufort County. As one of the oldest businesses, we’ve been embracing that concept for a long time,” Singleton said.

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to nominate some of Beaufort County’s gems. Paper ballots must be sent to the Daily News’ by 5 p.m. Friday and online ballots will be accepted until Friday at 11:59 p.m.

To nominate a favorite, visit thewashingtondailynews.secondstreetapp.com/ReadersChoice2017/.