Sports reporter in Hays, KS

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Link to the paper's website: http://hdnews.net

Link to the ad: http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1504691


The Hays Daily News, located in Hays, Kan., is seeking a full-time sports reporter to join its award-winning staff. The successful candidate will help develop story ideas and provide daily coverage for two local high schools and Fort Hays State University, an NCAA Division II member of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. The HDN's coverage area also includes 37 high schools.

Responsibilities would include event coverage, features, columns, copy editing and page design (InDesign/Photoshop), as well as producing content for our monthly niche full-color, glossy publication, Sports Ink.

The HDN, named Kansas' top mid-sized daily newspaper three of the past four years, is part of a strong family-owned group of publications that understands content, and the people who create content, still matter. Hays is a remarkable town of 25,000 — a safe community with low unemployment, nationally acclaimed public and private schools, high-speed fiber in every home, and a vibrant culture. Our best and brightest employees don't move on, they stick around. The average tenure of the sports/news staff is more than 15 years.

Please provide a cover letter, resume, and portfolio examples, and references in electronic form, to HDN Sports Editor Nick McQueen at nmcqueen@dailynews.net with the subject line “Sports reporter.” And good luck. We are looking for a keeper.

 

If Gary Garner was still coaching at Fort Hays State, this would be a fun gig.

 

I believe they also have a team in the Jayhawk League. Good summer collegiate, or semipro, ball.

 

How the hell far afield do you have to go to find 37 high schools in that part of the world?

 

Not as far as you might think. Lots of tiny little towns have tiny little high schools. The coverage focuses mostly on Hays High and TMP Marion in town, but my guess is they take calls and hit playoff games and occasional features from a few counties away in each direction.

Hays is pretty remote, kind of the last bit of civilization in western Kansas before hours of open spaces on I-70 heading to Colorado, so it is a ways away from any big cities. But a young person wouldn't necessarily be bored to death there. Fort Hays State has grown into a decent sized school so there is some nightlife and whatnot.

 

Yeah, I've passed through it twice, once in either direction. That and Colby are the last real things of any size headed toward Denver. Surely some of those schools must be 6- or 8-man football, though, if there are that many of them.

 

Yeah, they "covered" my high school, which played 8-man football about an hour east of Hays. I think they only staffed one sub-state basketball game the entire time I was in school though, but I'm pretty sure our coach called in boxes and if I remember right one of my friends made their all-area team one year.

 

I've covered a couple games there and didn't hate it. Granted, that was 15+ years ago, but there was great game atmosphere. I had fun there.