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

1967 Alliance High School graduate Randy York (pictured at left) is the first recipient.

The announcement was made Saturday, May 3, during the APS Foundation’s annual wine tasting fundraiser and Sandhills Luau at the Westside Events Center.

“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 graduated from AHS in 1967. They 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, Kansas. The Jindra family, which includes two grandsons and one granddaughter, lives in Frisco, Texas.

The Alliance Public Schools Foundation initiated the Wall of Fame to recognize the accomplishments of outstanding alumni of Alliance High School. 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 included 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 agreed to share his thoughts about Alliance and the impact the community has had on his journalistic career.

York earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from UNL. He worked during his summer vacations as a sports writer/editor for the Alliance Times-Herald from 1967 to 1970. 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 Sportscasters and Sportswriters 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 in Lincoln. He also wrote and shared sports editorials for Lincoln radio 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 director of Sprint’s Annual Report that was printed in seven languages. York was also the managing director of a special publication that won the International Association of Business Communicator’s highest honor, a Gold Quill, for a publication that chronicled Sprint employees’ heroic efforts in the midst of the 9/11/01 tragedies.

York returned to Lincoln to work for the UNL Department of Athletics in 2007.

York has been a guest several times on KCOW Radio, sharing memories of growing up in Alliance, promoting UNL athletics and Alliance High School standout Jordan Hooper of the Husker women’s basketball team. He also served as the guest speaker of the Alliance Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet in 2010.