07-16-2009/07-18-2009 PETRO NAMED SPORTS JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR Long-time Kansas City sports talk show host Soren Petro received the prestigious "Joe McGuff Sports Journalist of the Year" award at the 37th Annual SPORTKC PROPS Awards banquet at the Midland Theatre. The legendary McGuff, who died at the age of 79, was a long-time sports journalist and editor at the Kansas City Star. A major civic leader, McGuff was credited with being a reason Kansas City landed the KC Royals baseball franchise in 1969. However, in the write-up (LINK) in the Kansas City Star (7/17) of the award winners Petro's name was not mentioned in a story by veteran sports reporter Blair Kerkhoff. Was it because some Star reporters might not consider a sports radio talk show host a "journalist" in the mold of the award's namesake? Not really. It was simply an oversight on Kerkhoff's part. "I have great admiration for Soren's work and his depth of knowledge across the sports spectrum," says Kerkhoff. "He has me on once a week during the school year to talk college sports and it's a challenge keeping up with him. "Besides being entertaining, I've always found him to be informative, fair and responsible, and that's good journalism to me. I think Joe McGuff would have thought so, too." Kerkhoff says he wishes he had included Petro and others in his story, but was interviewing veteran golfer Jim Colbert to get his comments about Kansas City icon Tom Watson leading the British Open. "In hindsight, I wish I at least mentioned Soren, the high school award recipients and the volunteers," he says. "Or at least we could have run the list of award winners again. They deserved the recognition."
Petro, 37, who has 14 years of broadcast experience, currently hosts "The Program with Soren Petro" weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on WHB-810 AM. Born in St. Louis, he grew up in Kansas City and graduated from Shawnee Mission East in 1989. He went on to receive a degree from Syracuse University. After a series of radio positions with SportsFan Radio Network and three years in Las Vegas, he returned to KC in 1999 to 980 KMBZ, where he worked with legendary sports talker Don Fortune during a 4 1/2-year stint before joining WHB. Also being honored at the event will be (semi-) retired KMBC-TV9 sports legend and former Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, who will receive the "Lamar Hunt Lifetime Achievement Award." See all award winners: http://www.sportkc.org/sportkc.aspx?pgID=866&event_id=159
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