Award-winning journalism

During my professional career, my writing has been honored with a number of awards.

I have won three awards from the Michigan Associated Press Editorial Association. My stories were entered into Division I with other daily newspapers with circulation up to 15,000.

My most recent award was for a series of stories in March 2003 about the death and resurrection of the Michigan Tech University football team. The series of stories, written over a two-week period, details the university's reasons behind the decision to ax the team and the reaction to the decision including efforts by alumni to restore the program with private backing.

First Place - Sports enterprise - 2003

The series earned a first place award in the sports enterprise category for myself and former sports writer Kevin Colbert who also contributed to the series. Here are the stories I penned for the series.

Tech shocker: School will drop football (March 18, 2003)
Football supporters angry MTU cutting program (March 19, 2003)
MTU alumni want football saved (March 24, 2003)
Tech football to be saved? (March 28, 2003)
MTU won't punt football program, after all (March 31, 2003)

Second Place - News column - 2002

For 2002, I won a second place award for a news column about the Michigan Educational Assessment Program test. The state and local schools held community days where the public (and myself) could take a small portion of the test and learn more about the program.

Back to school: Mastering MEAP not child's play (Nov. 19, 2002)

Third Place - Sustained coverage of a single news event - 2001

In November 2001, there was an attempted fire bombing at the university. The series written by former staff writer Steve Neavling and myself earned a third place award in the sustained coverage of a single news event category from the state AP. The package of stories also won a second place award in the spot news category in Daily Class D from the Michigan Press Association.

Here are the stories I wrote for the series:

Police suspect bombs at MTU (November 5, 2001)
Group spokesman familiar with devices (November 6, 2001)
Researchers recall other attacks (November 8, 2001)
No lasting effects anticipated (November 8, 2001)