OLTL's Mark Lawson wins Best Hunk

OLTL's Mark Lawson won the 2008 Best Hunk award Thursday night as the 10th Annual Soaphunks.net Award winners were announced, marking the first time in history that a newcomer has won the top award in his freshman year. Of his leading (and record-tying) eight nominations, Lawson also won the awards for Hunkiest Newcomer and Best Chest.

Also winning three trophies was B&B's Brandon Beemer, who won all of his categories except the top one. Beemer took Best Pecs, Best Abs, and Best Eyes, meaning he repeated all of his wins from 2007 while on DAYS. Beemer's wins in 2008 mark the first awards in history for B&B, which finally scored after receiving 28 total nominations.

Lawson and Beemer were the only soap hunks to win more than one trophy in 2008.

OLTL was named the year's Hunkiest Soap, the first time that sudser has won that award after six tries. It was only the second time ever that an ABC soap won Hunkiest Soap, following AMC's win in 2005.

In his first year ever as a nominee, classic soap hunk Shawn Christian of DAYS won for Best Hunk Over 40, meaning that for the first time, a single soap has now produced a winner in every single category of the Soaphunks.net Awards, as DAYS claimed a prize in the only category in which it was lacking a win.

DAYS also took the award for Most Missed Soap Hunk for its alum (and 2003 Best Hunk winner) Eric Winter. Winter has logged appearances on several primetime series this year, and he also won this category last year.

In a somewhat amazing turn of events, DAYS' James Scott, the Best Hunk winner the past two years, only converted one of his three nominations into a win in 2008. Scott easily won again for Best Voice, three-peating in a category that only he has won since its debut in 2006. Scott may have only nabbed one win this year, but one was enough to tie him with AMC's Cameron Mathison for the most Soaphunks.net Award wins ever, with 11 each.

In the narrowest margin of victory in Soaphunks.net Award history, ATWT's Van Hansis won Best Butt by one vote over Y&R's Joshua Morrow (22.73% to 22.59%). Similarly, OLTL's John-Paul Lavoisier eked out a razor-thin win for Best Hair over PAS' three-time champ Galen Gering (28.04% to 27.90%). The win was Lavoisier's first since 2002. Gering's narrow loss also meant that PAS would officially finish its awards run with no new wins, giving it a series total of 96 nominations and 22 wins.

GH scored a trophy for three of its hunks. Two-time Adonis runner-up and 2005 Best Hunk winner Greg Vaughan upset James Scott to win Most Shamefully Clothed for the second time. His co-star Steve Burton flexed his muscles in the Best Arms category with his second career win, following a victory for Best Pecs in 2003. Jason Thompson won Best Smile, an award he previously won in 2006.

Thompson fell in his other category, Best Face, to ATWT's now-fired Dylan Bruce. Bruce's win marks the first time that a CBS actor has won in that category.

Overall, OLTL won a leading five awards, followed by B&B, DAYS, and GH with three each. ATWT won two, while AMC, GL, PAS, and Y&R were shut out.

Among networks, ABC had eight wins, with CBS taking five and NBC three.

And yes, once again, Y&R's Thad Luckinbill went home empty-handed. His two losses leave him with 16 career nominations and no wins.

For the complete race-by-race results this year, visit http://soaphunks.net/awards-year.php?year=2008.