Outstanding Achievement
Award Winners

ROYE. BARLOW graduated from Vidalia High School where he lettered in football and track. He attended LA Tech and graduated with his first degree in 1971 with a BA in Geography and History. He later earned a BS in H&PE and a Masters in H&PE and Administration. Also an Educational Specialist Degree in Social Studies. He first taught as an assistant at LA Tech where he worked with the Intramurals, coached and taught power lifting and conditional classes and also coached Bowling and Golf. He helped develop a strength program for the Lady Techsters in their early years and assisted with the newly formed "Iron Dogs" which was the first power lifting team at LA Tech. In 1978-79 he was Head Baseball and Assistant Football Coach at Cotton Valley High School. He later joined the coaching staff at JHHS the next year. In 1981 and 1982 as Head Girls Track Coach he led them to District Champs, Regional Champs and 3rd in State.  Also District Champs in 1983 and 1984. From 1979 to 1990 he was Assistant Football Coach. ('87-'88-'89 State AA Champs and '99 State Runner Up) In 1984 he began his Administrative Duties as Assistant Principal and continued to coach. In 1990 he became principal at JHHS and in 2001 he became the Supervisor of Transportation and Maintenance before retiring in 2013.

DOUG IRELAND was recently inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame as a Distinguished Service in Sports Journalism.  Doug was the Chairman of the Hall of Fame since April 1990, just over a year after he left the Alexandria Town Talk sports staff and launched a 30 year run as the acclaimed, innovative Sports Information Director at Northwestern State University. Ireland spearheaded efforts leading to construction and the 2013 opening of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum in Natchitoches.  Ireland managed all aspects of the annual Hall of Fame selections and inductions from 1990-2010 and since has continued to coordinate elections while collaborating with LHSOF Foundation leaders to stage the Induction Celebration each year.  Ireland ended his SID career in the summer of 2019. His 1992 Demon Football Media Guide won Best in the Nation for Division I-AA from the College Sports Information Directors of America and a .1991 historical feature marking Demon great Joe Delaney's induction in the College Football Hall of fame was second in a national CoSIDA contest.  In 18 months (1987-1989) as a sportswriter for the Alexandria Town Talk, he captured 15 top three finishes in the annual LSW A writing contest, including records of nine overall awards including six first places in the 1987-88 competition while he covered state colleges, high schools, and did general assignment reporting.  He picked up six more awards, two firsts, in teh 1988-89 contest despite leaving the LSU beat in January 1989 to accept the SID post at his alma mater.  Ireland added dozens of LSWA awards for writing and publications in 30-plus years as the Demons' SID, including 33 since 2000.  In 2016, he won the LSWA's Story of the Year awards as a correspondent for the Natchitoches Metro Leader.  In February 2008, he was presented the "Distinguished American Award" by the S.M. McNaughton Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.  He was named the Alexandria Town Talk's Cenla Sportsman of the Year for 2012, an acknowledgment of his dual roles with the Hall of Fame and NSU Athletics.  He was the recipient of the Southland Conference's 2016 Louis Bonnette Sports Media Award for his impact in the NCAA Division I League.  Ireland launched his career at age 14 as a sportswriter and columnist at the weekly Jackson Independent, and broadcasting for the local radio station while playing two sports at Jonesboro-Hodge High School.  While earning his journalism degree at NSU, he was a news reporter for the Shreveport Times for two years, running the Times Natchitoches Bureau in 1981-82.  He spent the next three years as first-ever assistant SID at UL-Lafayette, then was an award-winning sports editor of the Natchitoches Times before joining the Town Talk sports staff in 1987.

DAN MCDONALD was a 2017 inductee into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame being the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism. In 1976 Dan became the youngest Sports Information Director in the nation of any Division I program. Dan won his fourth LSW A Sports Writer of the Year honor in 2011. In 1999 McDonald received the LSWA's esteemed Mac Russo Award. Dan was a brilliant student at Jonesboro-Hodge High School, making a perfect score on the ACT (American College Testing). He probably would have been a success in any field the he chose. After graduating with honors at Northwestern State University, he spent a year as a sports writer at the Alexandria Town Talk. His alma mater NSU hired him at the age of 22 as one of the youngest Sports Information Directors in the nation.  In 1980, he moved to what is now UL-Lafayette University as SID. He served there for 23 years, winning numerous CoSIDA awards for writing and editing media guides. He also served two years on the CoSIDA Board of Directors, and was a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee for two Olympics (Seoul in 1988 and Atlanta in 1996), attending six U.S. Olympic Festivals. Dan served two years as vice president and two years as president of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. After retiring from UL-Lafayette as SID, he became senior sports writer for the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, and even after retiring from that role has won dozens of writing awards from the LSW A, including three as "Writer of the Year" in a five-year span. Perhaps his greatest honor was being elected to the College Sports Directors Association Hall of Fame in June 2011, being along with Louis Bonnette and Paul Manasseh the only Louisiana SID's to be members. He has received many more outstanding awards.