SBP Excellence Awards Announced

May 16, 2014

Montrose High School captured first place in two of five individual categories in the inaugural MHSAA School Broadcast Program Excellence Awards, and with it the “Program of the Year” honor.

The SBP Excellence Awards are underwritten by Herff Jones, which will award certificates and plaques to the ten schools which took individual honors.  Presentations will be scheduled in the coming weeks to the recipient schools.

Montrose took first place in two categories:  Best Multicamera Production for a basketball game against Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary; and Best Produced Commercial/Feature for a public service announcement about texting while driving.  The program also demonstrated during the year a good blend of productions in a variety of sports covered and an overall command of the PlayOn! Sports software used for graphics and inserting commercials during the course of productions.

Other category winners were:  St. Ignace High School for Best Use of PlayOn! graphics in a football game against Hillman; Rogers City High School for the Best Overall Single Camera Production of a Game Using PlayOn! Graphics in a football game against Mio; and Haslett High School for Best Student Play-by-Play in a girls basketball game against DeWitt.

Here is the complete list by categories of the school being honored in this year’s SBP Excellence Awards:

Best Single Camera Production with PlayOn! Graphics

First Place – Rogers City Sarah Meredith, Amber Nowicki – Football game v. Mio

Second Place – Petoskey – Stuart Green, Nick Snider, Josh Kuhlman, Joe LeBlanc – Girls Volleyball match with Ogemaw Heights

Third Place – St. Ignace – Alysse Bentley, Jenny Campbell, Dillian Denman – Football game v. Hillman

Best Multicamera Production

First Place – Montrose – Tyler J. Anderson, Eric Vandefifer, Cabresha Nard, Ashley Abair, Sidney Trantham – Boys Basketball game v. Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary

Second Place – Johannesburg-Lewiston – Girls Basketball game v. Gaylord St. Mary

Third Place – Cedar Springs – Ian Murphy, Alex Tanis, Alex Hughes, Kody Hall, Liz Moore, Alec Lachniet, Jake Detloff – Boys District Basketball game, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern v. Grand Rapids Northview

Best use of PlayOn! Graphics/Software

First Place – St. Ignace – Alysse Bentley, Jenny Campbell, Dillian Denman – Football game v. Hillman

Second Place – Haslett – Delany McFate – Girls basketball game v. DeWitt

hird Place – Petoskey - Stuart Green, Nick Snider, Josh Kuhlman, Joe LeBlanc – Girls Volleyball match with Ogemaw Heights

Best Produced Commercial/Feature

First Place – Montrose – Cabresha Nard, Tyler J. Anderson, Haley Ruiz – Texting/Driving PSA

Second Place – Charlevoix – Ben Boss,  Benny Patkai – Classroom electives offerings promo

Third Place – Rogers City – Morgan Hall, Sarah Meredith – Rogers City Softball Preview

Best Student Play-by-Play Commentary

First Place – Haslett – Andy Stamm, Tyler Mehigh – Girls basketball game v. DeWitt

Second Place – Rockford – Riley O’Keefe, Kevin DeLaFuente, Lucas Henry – Football game v. East Kentwood

Third Place – Escanaba – Jon Perrault, Todd Rose – Boys basketball game v. Gladstone      

The School Broadcast Program, powered by PlayOn! Sports, is a platform which schools can utilize to reach members of their community about activities taking place in their buildings, providing recognition for students while at the same time giving them hands-on opportunities to gain broadcasting experience and providing schools an opportunity to realize additional revenues for their programs. 

Schools interested in becoming a part of the School Broadcast Program should contact John Johnson at the MHSAA Office.

Applications Available on MHSAA Website for 2024-25 Scholar-Athlete Awards

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

October 24, 2024

One of the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s most popular programs, the Scholar-Athlete Award, will again with Farm Bureau Insurance present 32 $2,000 scholarships to top student-athletes at member high schools during the 2024-25 school year.

Farm Bureau Insurance logoThe MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award highlights the value extracurricular activities play in the total education of high school students, often improving their academic achievements in the process. The Scholar-Athlete Award is in its 36th year. Since the award’s inception in 1988-89, Farm Bureau Insurance has presented $1,088,000 in scholarships through this program.

The first 30 scholarships will be presented on a graduated basis across the MHSAA’s traditional class structure. From Class A schools, six boys and six girls will receive scholarships; from Class B schools, four boys and four girls; from Class C schools, three boys and three girls; and from Class D schools, two boys and two girls will be honored. The final two scholarships will be awarded at-large to minority recipients, regardless of school size. The scholarships may be used at the institution of higher learning the recipients attend during the first year at those colleges.

Applications from individual schools will be limited to the number of available scholarships in their enrollment class. Class A schools may submit the names of six boys and six girls, Class B schools may submit four boys and four girls, Class C may submit three boys and three girls and Class D may submit two boys and two girls.

Students applying for Scholar-Athlete Awards must be graduating during the 2024-25 school year, carrying an unrounded 3.5 (on a 4.0 scale) grade-point average and have won a varsity letter in a sport in which the MHSAA sponsors a postseason tournament: baseball, girls and boys basketball, girls and boys bowling, girls competitive cheer, girls and boys cross country, football, girls and boys golf, girls gymnastics, ice hockey, girls and boys lacrosse, girls and boys skiing, girls and boys soccer, softball, girls and boys swimming & diving, girls and boys tennis, girls and boys track & field, girls volleyball and wrestling.

Applicants will be required to show involvement in other school and community activities and submit an essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics.

Information – including answers to a number of frequently asked questions – and links to the application are available online on the Scholar-Athlete Award page of MHSAA.com. Applications are available in digital format only and must be submitted online by 4 p.m. Dec. 6.

A committee composed of school administrators from across the state will select finalists and winners in late January, with the winners to be announced throughout February. All applicants, finalists and scholarship recipients will be announced on the MHSAA Website. The 32 scholarship recipients will be recognized during the 2025 MHSAA Boys Basketball Finals at the Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing.

Farm Bureau Insurance of Michigan was founded in 1949 by Michigan farmers who wanted an insurance company that worked as hard as they did. Those values still guide the company today and are a big reason why it is known as Michigan’s Insurance Company, dedicated to protecting the farms, families, and businesses of this great state. Farm Bureau Insurance agents across Michigan provide a full range of insurance services – life, home, auto, farm, business, retirement, Lake Estate®, and more – protecting more than 660,000 Michigan residents.

The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.