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South Easton, Mass. – Veteran journalist Sean Barker of the New Haven Register was honored at halftime during the New Haven/Southern Connecticut Northeast-10 football game as this year’s ‘Dick Lipe Media Award’ recipient as selected by the conference Sports Information Director’s council. The award was presented last night during a special halftime presentation at Jess Dow Field on the campus of Southern Connecticut.

Barker is currently the sports editor at the New Haven Register and has done wonders for college coverage in the state of Connecticut in general and in particular, the Southern Connecticut region. Prior to the start of each season, Barker meets up with the area athletic directors and sports information directors to discuss coverage and ideas for the upcoming academic year.

"Sean Barker has a long affiliation with the Northeast-10 Conference and its member institutions dating back to his days as an undergraduate, said Associate Director of Athletic Communications Michael Kobylanski. “He has long been an advocate of the great work that the league's student-athletes are doing both on and off the playing fields. Throughout his tenure at the New Haven Register, Sean made coverage of area college athletics programs, including Southern Connecticut State University and University of New Haven, a top priority. I am extremely pleased that Sean has been selected for the ‘Dick Lipe Media Award’. He is well-deserving of the honor."

Barker has also established weekly college features pages, which cover the colleges and universities from all divisions in the New Haven area. In addition to weekly features, Barker has also established staff coverage and publicity at both New Haven and Southern Connecticut football games.

Barker covers the Northeast-10 regularly, monitoring events, stats and standings through the website. He is also responsible for assigning various features, such as the story on wooden bats in the Northeast-10 and staff coverage of the NE-10 indoor track & field championships.

“Sean has provided a tremendous amount of quality coverage to the University of New Haven on an on-going basis, in particular since the Chargers joined the Northeast-10 Conference, said Director of Athletic Communications Andrew Beardsley. “He’s expanded the college sports coverage in the past year, including integrating a special section for local college athletics. The NE-10 ‘Dick Lipe Media Award’ has no better recipient this year; Sean is very deserving of this distinction.”

The award is presented annually in honor of continued excellence in promoting the athletic and academic endeavors of Northeast-10 student-athletes and their institutions.

Established in 2002, Barker is the eighth recipient of the annual ‘Dick Lipe Media Award’. The inaugural award was given and named after Bentley University Sports Information Director Dick Lipe in 2002. Lipe was also the conference’s first information director, a post he held for 19 years. In 2003 and 2004, the award was given to Chris Granozio of Le Moyne College and Northeast-10 Radio/Web Casting and Jim Fenton of the Brockton Enterprise respectively. In 2005, Jim Fennell of the New Hampshire Union Leader received the award and in 2006 the Boston Globe’s Marvin Pave was the award recipient. In 2007, webcaster Stephen Zerdelian received the award and last year the honor went to Steve Palladino of the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune.

With 16 member institutions the Northeast-10 shares the distinction of being the largest Division II conference in the country along with the PSAC and WVIAC. Its 23 championship sports provide athletic opportunities for over 5,500 student-athletes, the largest such program of any Division II conference.

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