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Steve Carpenter, 43, is the first full-time sports
information director in the long and storied history of the Hutchinson
Community College athletic department. He is now in his
fourth year as
SID.
Carpenter came to HCC after an 18-year journalism
career that spanned four newspapers in two states. He was the interim
SID for the Blue Dragons in the spring of 2004, while also working as
administrative assistant for the Lady Dragon women’s basketball team.
In his first year as SID at Hutch, Carpenter oversaw
the reconstruction of the athletic department’s website as well as
improved overall coverage of all 14 intercollegiate sports.
Prior to joining the Blue Dragon athletic department,
Carpenter was the sports editor of The Hutchinson News from 1995-2003.
Over that span, Carpenter covered Blue Dragon athletics, taking over
as full-time football and volleyball beat writer in 1997 and the
entire HCC/junior college beat in 2001.
In his eight-plus years at The News, Carpenter won
numerous Kansas Press Association and Harris Enterprises awards for
sports writing, column writing and page design. He led a staff of five
other writers who also won awards on a yearly basis for their work.
Carpenter orchestrated The News’ yearly coverage of the
NJCAA national basketball tournament and other events such as the Big
12 men’s golf championship, The Hutchinson Nationals auto races and
countless state, national and world events at Fun Valley and Hobart-Detter
Field.
The crowning achievement of Carpenter’s tenure at The
News was the coverage of the 2002 U.S. Women’s Open Golf Championship
at Prairie Dunes Country Club. Carpenter’s staff - which grew to 15
writers and photographers for the event - flawlessly covered the
biggest event ever to take place in the state of Kansas at that time.
Carpenter started his journalism career writing sports
part-time at the Tecumseh Chieftain in Tecumseh, Neb., in 1985. He
became the sports editor of the Clay County News, a weekly publication
in Sutton, Neb., in 1987 and spent four years there. In September of
1991, Carpenter became a sportswriter for the North Platte Telegraph
in North Platte, Neb. Thirteen months later, he was promoted to sports
editor.
While at The Telegraph, Carpenter covered University of
Nebraska athletics as well as the Denver Broncos and Colorado Rockies.
But it was during his tenure in North Platte that he started to
develop a passion for junior college athletics as the beat writer for
the Mid-Plains Community College Knights.
Carpenter was born on April 17, 1965 in Omaha, Neb.
He spent most of his younger years growing up in Tecumseh, Neb.,
graduating from Tecumseh High School in 1983. He earned a pair of
degrees from Gateway Electronics Institute of Omaha, Neb. in 1985 and
1986.
His wife, Tina, also a Nebraska native, is a Hutchinson
Community College graduate. The couple has four children: Christopher
(19), Andrew (18), Stephanie (11) and Samantha (2). |
