Sports Editor - Parsons Sun

from jjobs.com: http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=796883

Company: Parsons Sun
Position:
Seeking sports editor
Location:
Parsons, Kansas
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: Negotiable
Ad Expires:
August 3, 2007
Job ID: 796883


Description:
Sports Editor: The Parsons Sun has an immediate opening for a sports writer/editor. This person covers high school and community college sports, including a college wrestling program that finished second this season at the national tournament, and designs pages. Bachelor's degree preferred. The Sun is part of Kansas-based Harris Enterprises. The group offers health and dental coverage, 401k plus profit sharing. To apply, send a resume, clips and cover letter to Ray Nolting, managing editor, rnolting@parsonssun.com or to P.O. Box 836, Parsons, KS, 67357.

 

I went to their web site and the lead sports story is the Senior Babe Ruth team making it to district. Don't everyone rush at the same time to apply for this one.

 

Is this job going to get 200 resumes? Probably not.
But it's also a job that is going to have a major, major drop off in the summer. I don't think a late-June/early-July story should discount some younger people from applying.
I've seen these do-it-all type jobs parlayed into some nice gigs.

 

Their American Legion team won state in 1999. Shows how far American Legion has fallen — it's almost non-existent in Texas.

 

A very good man named Jack Harris served as sports editor here for about 40 years. Since then, there have been two sports editors in the past three years. I knew all of them. Justin Jarrett came after Jack and I never heard him complain. Mack McClure followed Justin and I never heard much other than complaints. I applied for the position myself after Justin left but had reservations and didn't take it (For me, it would have been lateral and that wasn't what I was looking for).

What I know of Parsons is:
* - There will be just you. The newsroom will help you with the Saturday morning paper and you might be able to find a stringer to help you with Labette County High School. There is a staff photog, so you won't have to worry about taking game pics yourself.

* - Parsons High School and Labette County High School are both about the same size. Even though LCHS is about 10 miles away, part of its district brushes the south side of Parsons. Some years, LCHS is actually larger than Parsons High. I've heard that LCHS parents expect their school to be treated equal to Parsons, which is impossible given the circumstances. From my experiences, however, the staff at LCHS is good to work with (I serve as a sort of clearance center for league standings and stats and LCHS responds to my requests in a timely fashion just about every time).

* - Parsons Middle School and St. Patrick's catholic school both have interscholastic athletic programs. I don't know how Jack, Justin or Mack handled them, but I don't think any of them went particularly overboard. Send your photog out for an occasional picture and perhaps get a good working relationship with the coaches so they'll send you the stuff you need.

* - Almost all of the northern half of the coverage area is common with the southern half of Chanute's. Chanute is the sister paper and both cover St. Paul and Erie-Thayer schools. Parsons also covers three other high schools: Cherryvale, Oswego and Chetopa. Parsons also once covered Southeast-Cherokee, but I don't think it does any more.

* - Labette Community College plays in the Jayhawk Conference, which is one of the top three conferences in all of juco land. Chances are you're going to see some pretty good basketball and baseball players pass through "before they became famous." There's no football program, but Justin did cover Pitt State home games the year he was sports editor, so that might be an option for you if you're wanting to cover some college football. LCC also has one of the few juco wrestling programs around (There's only four or five among the 19 jucos in Kansas).

* - Yeah, summers will be slow. Summer baseball seems to be taking a back seat to traveling-team basketball and seven-on-seven football camps, at least in this part of the state.

* - Because of Jack's work, you will have EXTENSIVE records to work with, going back into the mid-50's, depending on how well Justin and Mack kept them up. I know Justin told me once he found himself struggling to keep up and I'm not sure if Mack did at all. If you're a history buff, too, you've got your two passions all combined into one sport (Jack let me make copies of some of his records a few years ago, and I've had a lot of fun breaking them down and trying to maintain them).

All in all, I'd say Parsons is an excellent starting point for a career and not a bad second or third stop. The Harris chain is said to be quite a good one and you may have a chance to eventually work up to Hutchinson or Salina and be part of the multi-man staffs there. But if you're not ready to do a LOT of work from mid-August until the last weekend of May, you're not ready for this job.

 

Um, there's a multi-person staff at the lone Iowa newspaper in the chain that's pretty good, too.

The Harris chain is a good group. Not a bad paper in the group. This would be a good starting spot for anyone.

 

Mack took the Nevada, Mo., job. That's my input. I don't think he visits these boards but he might be one to contact on the current state of the Parsons paper.

 

I didn't feel qualified to say anything about Burlington as I don't know much about that one, since it's the only non-Kansas paper. Sort of like how we're one of only three Rust papers east of Missouri.