Bios for some new judges who will be attending the 2010 APSE Winter Conference:

Dave Ammenheuser, AME/Sports at The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise, has judged the APSE contest five previous times. Under his direction, his staffs have won multiple APSE writing awards and section awards while he has been the sports editor at the Rock Hill (S.C.) Herald, the New Haven (Conn.) Register and The Press-Enterprise. A Maryland native, Ammenheuser and his wife and two children enjoy the SoCal climate and can’t imagine ever moving back to the wintry Northeast.

Paul Antonelli, sports editor of the Amsterdam (N.Y.) Recorder, is a nine-time New York Publishers Association winner. He covered Mike Tyson for a 15-year period providing copy to various international media outlets. He was one of five American journalists to have covered the Tyson-Douglas fight in Tokyo. Antonelli went on to cover New York pro sports for Johnson Newspaper Group before accepting an assistant sports editor position for the Recorder. He was promoted to sports editor in March 2009.

Bill Bowman has been sports editor of The Daily Item in Sunbury, Pa., since July of 2008. He previously was assistant managing editor/sports at The Danville News in Danville, Pa. Prior to that, he spent three years working for the Press-Enterprise in Bloomsburg, Pa. Bowman is married and has a daughter, Maren, who is 4.


David Ching is midway through his second year as sports editor at the Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald, following five years at the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. Ching covered Georgia, Auburn and Columbus State athletics in Columbus after accepting a job there as a copy editor in 2003.

Andrew Cutler is the sports editor of the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal. Prior to arriving at the Journal in February 2008, he served as the managing editor of the Pierre (S.D.) Capital Journal, where he guided that paper to the General Excellence award for all papers in its size category. He has also been the sports editor and news editor at the Argus Observer in Ontario, Ore.

Tommy Deas is executive sports editor for The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News. A 1986 graduate of the University of Alabama, Deas interned at the Birmingham News before taking his first full-time job as prep writer at the Nashville Banner. He returned to his hometown of Tuscaloosa in 1991 and began working at The News, serving as interim sports editor in 1993 and working as sports writer covering Alabama athletics, high schools and small colleges until being promoted to executive sports editor in 2007.

Brad Engel is The Naperville Sun (Naperville, Ill.) sports editor and the interim sports editor for The Beacon-News (Aurora, Ill.), two daily newspapers within the newly named West Division of Sun-Times Media. He also oversees a handful of weekly sports sections in the surrounding western suburbs of Chicago.

Jake Felix of the Williamsport (Pa.) Sun-Gazette attended the Penn State and graduated with a degree in Telecommunications. He worked part-time at a local TV station as a sports anchor/camera operator for 1-1/2 years and began full-time journalism career at the Milton Daily Standard as a sports editor in the fall of 1999. After a brief stay, he took a job as sports editor of the Lock Haven Express in early 2000 and remained there until transferring within the company to the Sun-Gazette as a writer/desk person. Became the assistant sports editor in 2004.

Johanna Huybers is the sports desk copy chief at the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Nevada, Reno, in May 2009, Huybers was promoted after working on the sports desk since 2003.
 

Colleen McDaniel is the sports section editor at The Virginian-Pilot. Colleen, a native of Oregon, Wis., earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Wisconsin – Eau Claire and her Master’s in newspaper journalism from Syracuse. She began her career in newspapers as an intern with the Utica (N.Y.) Observer-Dispatch, eventually working there full time as assistant sports editor. She joined the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle in 1999 as assistant sports editor. In 2001, she began working at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, taking a job on the copy desk. She was promoted to assistant sports editor a short time later and was night city editor when she left in 2007. Colleen joined the Pilot in August 2007.

Shane Mettlen has been the sports editor at the Culpeper (Va.) Star-Exponent since 2007. Previously worked as a sports writer at The Robesonian in Lumberton, N.C., and The Register & Bee in Danville, Va., and served as a beat writer covering North Carolina State for the The Wolfpacker magazine and TheWolfpacker.com. He’s covered high school, college and professional sports and has been honored by the Virginia Press Association for his column writing, feature stories and game coverage. He is a graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. Mettlen lives in Albemarle County, Va., with his wife Jennifer and two their two dogs.

  Greg Pogue is executive sports editor of The Daily News Journal and general 
manager of BlueRaiders.com. in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Under his guidance, the DNJ sports section has been named best in state nine times for its division by the Tennessee Sports Writers Association. Also, the DNJ sports section has three times been named best in country among its division by the National Newspaper Association. His print experience includes publisher of Big Orange Illustrated, the UT sports fan magazine, and long-time sports reporter for the Nashville Banner. He also is host of the morning sports talk show on Nashville’s WNSR 560-AM radio station.

 
Jon Styf has been the sports editor at the Daily Chronicle in DeKalb, Ill., since December 2007. Before that, he was a sports reporter at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for two years and the Citrus County Chronicle (Crystal River, Fla.) for a year. He is a graduate of Michigan State. He is married with an eight-month old daughter.

 

Nick Talbot has been the sports editor of the Killeen (Texas) Daily Herald since May of 2009. Talbot spent two years as the sports editor of Highland Lakes Newspapers, where he wrote for and oversaw the production of The Highlander, The Llano County Journal and The Burnet Bulletin. In 2008 and 2009, Talbot won awards from the West Texas Press Association, the South Texas Press Association and Texas Press Association for sports coverage, sports photography and column writing. Talbot graduated from Florida in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and bachelor’s degrees in management and economics. While earning his undergraduate degrees, Talbot wrote for The Gainesville Sun and the Florida Alligator. After spending two years working in the business sector and freelancing for the Orlando Sentinel, he completed his master’s degree in sports management at Florida in 2005. Talbot lives with his wife, Pimchand, and their dog, Boots, in Georgetown, Texas.

John Turner is the sports editor of the Daily Times in Kerrville, Texas. He graduated from Bowling Green State University in December of 2008 and promptly moved 1,500 miles in search of an employer that would pay him to write about sports.
 

Jason Wolf is a sports reporter for the Danville (Va.) Register & Bee and has won APSE awards the last two years for project reporting and breaking news. He is a 2002 Penn State graduate and has been the sports editor of two small dailies in Pennsylvania.


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