KSHSAA announces Oscar Stauffer Award winners
TOPEKA, Kan. - The KSHSAA is pleased to announce the selection of Glen Grunwald and Kasey McDowell the 2020 Oscar Stauffer Award recipients. Grunwald, Hutchinson, has been dubbed the Sportscaster of the Year and McDowell, Mulvane, as the Sportswriter of the Year.
A central Kansas native who attended Pawnee Rock High School near the town of Albert, Glen Grunwald started his life in a different direction. Graduating from Fort Hays State University with a BS in education in 1971 and a MS in school administration in 1977, he ended a 10 year career in education and began what would become a 30 year career in Pharmaceutical Sales. Grunwald spent 25 of those years with GlaxoSmithKline where he served as a Territory Representative before becoming a Therapeutic Specialist and eventually a District Manager.
His love for sports broadcasting began as a hobby in 1985 when college friend Dennis Franz asked him to help with some sports broadcasting for his station in Larned, Kansas. After working various high school broadcasts for various stations for a few years, Barton Community College came calling in 1990 and Grunwald moved to Junior College basketball and volleyball. Beginning in 1998, Grunwald joined Eagle Radio in Hutchinson to be the voice of the Hutchinson Blue Dragons for basketball and color commentator and sideline reporter for football. After his retirement in 2010 from Pharmaceutical Sales, Grunwald became more involved with Eagle Radio Hutchinson by assisting with Hutchinson High School athletics in addition to calling Hutchinson Community College football and basketball games. He was honored by the KAB in 2017 as the recipient of the Hod Humiston Award for Broadcast excellence. In 2019 Grunwald was named Sports Director for Eagle Radio Hutchinson taking the place of long time Salthawk Sports voice Rusty Hilst. With this position came the responsibility of doing play-by-play for Hutchinson High School football, basketball and baseball games in addition to Hutchinson Community College football and men’s basketball broadcasts. Grunwald still makes time to be active with Special Olympics Kansas where he was a member of the charter board of directors and has served two terms as the board chairman.
Sportswriter of the Year award winner, Kasey McDowell, is the owner and writer for mulvanesports.com. A 1996 graduate from Mulvane High School, Kasey McDowell participated in baseball, football and basketball before attending Kansas State University where he received a computer science degree in 2003. At the request of the Mulvane High School coach, McDowell created a website for Mulvane baseball in 2004. He then went on to develop and run sites for the high school football, basketball and softball teams within the next four years. In 2013, McDowell combined all the websites and included all other high school sports to become the owner/operator of Kmac Web Design and mulvanesports.com. During this time, he also developed a way to publish articles to the website is now the primary writer of sports news coverage. McDowell does all this in his spare time as he works for the Mulvane School District in the Technology department as his primary job.
Mulvanesports.com is in its 7th year of operation and covers all high school and middle school sports from the varsity level on down. Each activity section features the rosters, schedules, stats, awards, photos, alumni sections that display the rosters/team/ results from years past (some back to early 1900s) and college trackers that covers all athletes that go on to compete at the collegiate level. McDowell also produces football highlight videos for each week that are in the football video gallery and has been doing so for over 10 years. The website features a “Virtual Wall of Fame” and “Virtual Wall of Honor” matching the physical wall of fame at Mulvane High School featuring athletes and teams that have won state titles, all state selections, and standout athletes throughout the history of Mulvane athletics. McDowell also developed a companion mobile app for apple and android products for mulvanesports.com which displays news articles, rosters, schedules, and pictures for the current season.