FOOTBALL: Southland honors late Orange Leader, UCA beat writer
Published 5:13 pm Thursday, July 19, 2018
HOUSTON — David McCollum, a former Orange Leader writer who spent the past 36 years covering Central Arkansas at the Log Cabin Democrat in Conway, was posthumously awarded the Louis Bonnette Sports Media Award.
The award is presented annually to an individual that has made outstanding contributions in the field of sports information, journalism, broadcasting or other media focused on the Southland Conference. Dave Hofferth, who retired from KBMT-TV as sports director last December, won the honor in 2017, and former Port Arthur News reporter Rush Wood was honored in 2013.
McCollum, who died April 30 at age 68, spent 51 years as a sports reporter. He worked for the now-defunct Memphis Press-Scimitar, Orange Leader and Little Rock-based Arkansas Democrat, which has since merged into the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, before joining the Log Cabin Democrat. He has covered the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, former President Bill Clinton’s campaign and inauguration and the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis march between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King in Houston in 1973.
Southland notes
Central Arkansas athletic director Brad Teague will chair the NCAA Division I football playoff committee this season. … Southland Commissioner Tom Burnett is recommending an eight-game conference schedule beginning in the 2021 season that allows for teams to schedule more quality nonconference opponents.
About I.C. Murrell
I.C. Murrell was promoted to editor of The News, effective Oct. 14, 2019. He previously served as sports editor since August 2015 and has won or shared eight first-place awards from state newspaper associations and corporations. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, grew up mostly in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
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