2014 Wall of Fame Recipient

An Alliance native and current senior writer and director of creative services for the University of Nebraska Department of Athletics in Lincoln has been named the first honoree for the Alliance Public Schools Foundation Wall of Fame.

"I'm deeply touched and genuinely humbled to receive this honor," York said. "My wife Linda and I are both proud that we grew up in Alliance, graduated from Alliance High School, and we both believe that our hometown has to be among the finest communities in the country."

York and the former Linda Stephens, both 1967 AHS graduates, will celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary this summer. They have two daughters, Angie Henderson and Julie Jindra. The Henderson family, which includes four grandsons, lives in Overland Park, Kan. The Jindra family, which includes two grandsons and one granddaughter, lives in Frisco, Texas.

The Alliance Public Schools Foundation established the Wall of Fame to recognize the accomplishments of outstanding Alliance High School alumni. The Foundation's Board of Directors solicited nominations from the public and then enlisted the help of the Alliance High School Student Council to judge the nomination forms and include a group of AHS students to make the selection.

The presentation of the award will be made at the 2014 Alliance High School Commencement Ceremony on Sunday, May 18. York has been asked and has agreed to share his thoughts about Alliance and the impact the community has had on his wide-ranging journalistic career.

York earned his bachelor's degree in journalism at UNL. He worked 18 years for the Lincoln Journal-Star, including 15 years full-time. He was named Nebraska Sportswriter of the Year six times by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. As the Journal-Star's prep sports editor, he hosted a cable television program called Prep Panorama and his statewide rankings and related coverage were syndicated and published in The North Platte Telegraph and The Scottsbluff Star-Herald. He served as a Nebraska football beat writer and featured columnist for the Journal-Star and co-hosted the state's first-ever sports talk radio program on KLMS. He also wrote and shared sports editorials for Lincoln stations KFOR and KLIN.

York then spent more than 22 years in corporate communications for Kansas City-based Sprint, where he served as the managing editor of a magazine that reached 90,000 employees. He was the managing editor of Sprint's Annual Report, which was printed in seven languages. York was also the managing director of a special publication that won the International Association of Business Communicators' highest honor, a Gold Quill, for chronicling Sprint employees' heroic efforts in the midst of the 9/11 tragedies.

He returned to Lincoln to work for the Department of Athletics and will begin his eighth year working for his alma mater this summer.