Special to the Express
For the second year in a row, West 10 Media has been recognized as an award-winning sports publication.
The Tennessee Sports Writers Association named “Gridiron Glory” the third-place winner in the 2018 Writing Contest Awards as Best Special Section in Division 3 for weekly newspapers.
Thomas Sellers Jr., Graham Sweeney, Kevin Lewter, Roger Cotton, Theron Malone, Bill Sorrell were contributing writers, editors and photographers along with Holland Studios.
The publication came out before the start of the 2018 football section.
West 10 Media newspapers are The Millington Star, The Bartlett Express, Shelby Sun-Times, Collierville Herald-Independent and The Covington Leader in the Shelby-Metro area.
The awards, based on articles that were published in 2018, were presented at Cumberland University in Lebanon in July.
“Gridiron Glory” also won third place for special section in 2017.
Freelance sports writer Bill Sorrell won first place in Division 3 for Best Feature Writer. His award-winning story was on Reese Wagner, a Bartlett High School baseball player who drowned at age 10 and through LeBonheur Medical Center treatment miraculously survived and went on to play college baseball at co-ed Mississippi University for Women.
Judges said, “All his features were thoroughly reported and written, but his feature on a college baseball player who was declared dead when he was 10 after drowning and survived was magnificent.”
Sorrell, who is pastor of First Baptist Church in Whiteville, won second in Gary Lundy Writer of the Year and second in Best News/Event Writer. He won first place in Best News/Event category last year and won third place in 2016 in Best/News Event Writer.
Sorrell has won 22 awards, including 13 first place honors, in TSWA competition and one from the South Carolina Press Association for second place in sports reporting for a story in 2018 on Tennessee Titans kicker Ryan Succop that was published in The Baptist Courier.
Writing for the Bethel University Sports Information Department, Sorrell won first place in Best Event Writer in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and for Best Feature Writer in 2013.
He won second place in Best Feature category and second place as Best Feature Writer in 2014, as well as third place in Best Event Writer in 2016.
When contributing to the Lambuth University Sports Information Department, Sorrell was the Gary Lundy Writer of the Year in Division 3 in 2010, First
Place in Best Event/News in 2010 and third place in Best Feature Writer, all in Division 3.
Through On The Ball Magazine in 2007, he won first place as Best Feature Writer and won second place as Gary Lundy Writer of the Year.
A former freelance sports writer for The Fayette Falcon in Somerville, Sorrell won first place as Best News/Event Writer in 2007 and 2006 and third place in 2005.
Majoring in journalism at Baylor University, Sorrell was a former sports editor of The Daily Corinthian in Corinth, Miss., and assistant sports editor of The Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, Mississippi, before entering the ministry.
He has written the Keeping The Faith column for Lindy’s magazine for 18 years and writes faith-based stories for Southern Baptist state papers that have been published in The Word and Way (Missouri), The Western Record (Kentucky), The Baptist and Reflector (Tennessee), The Alabama Baptist, The Baptist Courier (South Carolina), The Arkansas Baptist News, The Baptist Standard (Texas), The Florida Baptist Witness and The Baptist Messenger (Oklahoma).
He has also had articles in Sports Spectrum, a national magazine highlighting Christian athletes, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes magazine, Sharing The Victory.
