Of all the awards I've won, this is the only one about which I am sentimental—the only one I still have hanging on my wall.

 

Winning the Missouri Press Association award for Best Sports Coverage became a bit of an obsession for The Cameron Citizen-Observer's publisher, Craig Watkins. Although I had offers from larger newspapers, he convinced me to give the

C-O a chance in 1994. He was one of the few small newspaper publishers willing to hire a reporter to cover sports exclusively. 

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We came close to winning the big prize in 1995 and '96, finishing second. In March of 1997 we were a few weeks away from preparing our entries for that year's awards when Craig got the news: he had colon cancer. The doctors told him he probably wouldn't be alive in six months.

 

In September I received the call that we had won this award. Craig's smile was as big as ever when I told him. Lying in the hospital bed that had been moved inside his home office, he said, "We did it." He congratulated me and shook my hand.

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Then he asked me how good I thought the Mizzou football team might be that fall, and he eventually said not good-bye but, instead, "I'll see you later." The last words I said to him—he passed away a few days later—were, "I'm counting on it."

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- Joseph Loudon