After weeks of competition and thousands of votes, the first TN Readers’ Choice winners were honored with a party and awards ceremony Tuesday night.

This year’s contest featured nearly 200 categories, from auto, entertainment and sports to food, drink, home and health.

Readers were able to nominate businesses for each category through July. And every category included at least two businesses.

“Everybody had competition,” said Jennifer Benninger, Times News advertising director.

Over three weeks, readers cast more than 180,000 votes for your favorites.

Benninger said the readers’ choice competition shows local businesses “how much support they have in the community.”

“It’s about celebrating local businesses,” she said about the contest. “We’re very proud to be a local, family-owned business ourselves.”

At the awards ceremony, winners received a framed certificate for their category. The event took place in the parking lot of the Times News Lehighton office, under the cover of a white, candlelit tent decorated in fall colors and gourds. About 200 people were in attendance.

Kimberly Gerhard, who opened her store Perfect Balance Boutique — a specialty shop for women who have or have had breast cancer — in January, recalled being “dumbfounded” when she found out her Lehighton business had been nominated for best in the medical supplies category.

Gerhard was even more stunned still when, later that summer, she was told Perfect Balance had won.

“I was screaming at the top of my lungs,” she said. She added that Perfect Balance has served about 300 clients since the beginning of this year.

“I was just that happy,” Gerhard, said Tuesday afternoon, her hair dyed a perfect, puff pink for the month of October.

“I put my faith first, and I said, ‘You know what, I know God has me here,’ and he just keeps showing that this is what I’m destined to do.”

Other business owners shared a similar enthusiasm.

“We were tickled pink,” said Cindy Deppe, co-owner of Becky’s Drive-In Theatre. “We are very happy that people acknowledged us.”

“It was like winning an Emmy,” according to June Redline, co-owner of Redline Floor Covering.

To find out if one of your favorite businesses won this year, check out the complete list of winners in a special section in this Thursday’s edition of the Times News.

Kristine Porter contributed to this report.