Hutchinson (Kan.) News - Sports Reporter

http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=733031

The position, from what I hear, is for covering Hutchinson High School, which has pretty darn good athletics. The football team has won three straight big-class state titles and has played in four straight title games. I believe the school has won state titles this decade in boys basketball, rasslin' and track.

It's a decent mid-sized Kansas city, only about a 40-minute drive to Wichita and 3 1/2 hours from Kansas City, three hours from Oklahoma City.

 

Hutch is a good sports town, good people, good paper.

The only problem? Their coverage area is HUGE. Ain't much west of Hutch in Kansas, or in Colorado, for that matter, until you get to Denver.

 

I had a blast living in Hutch and this is a Harris paper, which I hear is a good chain. The Sports Arena hosts the JUCO national tournament and the high school has a great nickname, the Salthawks. It's also a good golf town, even if you can't afford to play Prairie Dunes.

 

Is that "Salthawks" or "Salt Hawks" ?

 

It is Salt Hawks.

 

There are some good folks at this place.
Ditto about the coverage area.

 

Hey newbie, how's the gig?

 

Should be "Salt Hawks," though I see that management caved recently so there are bad splits that read "Sal-thawks" from one line to another on occasion. Oh, how I wish I could change that, bothers me to no end.

Great place to work. Though I can't speak for the new management since I've left, the folks in that sports department are good people. From what I understand, this is for the Hutchinson High beat, though there would be other prep assignments here and there. Salt Hawks have won three straight Class 6A football titles, so if you're not a football fan, you won't like the longest season on this beat.

Be prepared to travel. Hutch belongs to the AVCTL, which means they go as far north as Salina (50-minute drive) and as far south as Derby (an hour probably) in its own division. Trips to Winfield and Arkansas City obviously require more time. And there are the occasional trips to Dodge City (two hours west) and Garden City (another 40 minutes west from Dodge City). Wichita has plenty to do and is only 40 minutes away.

Lyman is right -- it's a huge coverage area, going all the way to Elkhart, which is near the Oklahoma and Colorado borders. About 90 primary schools to cover, but about 120-plus go into the football and basketball tabs. There's also the men's national JUCO tournament, which runs for five days in March at the Sports Arena. In short, you're happy to end March so you can finally move on to the zillion spring sports for two more months until the prep season ends.

If anyone has any questions, by all means, drop me a line and I'll get back to you ASAP. In the meantime, I hope that this helped somewhat.

Oh, and astleford, good to see you around again.

 

Go back 15 years, and I'd have been all over this one.

 

I know a local high school boys basketball star who is considering this school because his grades may not be good enough for D-I. If he goes and someone here gets the job, I have a great story idea for you about him. I just wrote it for the paper here.

 

Anybody know the circulation at Hutchinson?

 

Roughly 30,000. Best-case numbers would be 35,000.