Photo of Harry Atkins

LANSING, MI (AP) — Retired Michigan AP Sports Editor Harry Atkins was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame on April 20, 2002.

Atkins retired in late 2000 after a 29-year AP career that included 21 years as Michigan sports editor, covering everything from high school sports to the Rose Bowl, Super Bowl, NCAA basketball Final Four, the World Series and the Stanley Cup.

"I had a job most people could only dream about. I wrote sports for the AP," he told an audience of 250 people at the ceremony in East Lansing.

Those supporting Atkins' nomination to the Hall of Fame praised not only his writing and reporting skills but also his deft teaching touch, his mentoring of young sports writers and his commitment to learning andgetting better.

Detroit Chief of Bureau Charles Hill introduced Atkins and included accolades from member sports editors and writers, AP writers and editors, and readers. Hill described Atkins' writing as graceful and direct, and then read some of Atkins' writing, adding:

"Those words are part of Harry's legacy. But so is his record of high standards for being fair, working hard, getting the job done, respecting readers, treating people with dignity and, always, helping people. He made newspapers better, he made journalism better and he made the people around him better."

The induction of Atkins marked the second straight year an AP writer entered the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. The late Charles Cain was inducted last year. Cain worked at the AP's Detroit bureau from 1945 until his retirement in 1979, serving as news editor, sports editor, auto writer, night editor and day editor.

Atkins previously has been inducted into two other halls of fame, both in his hometown of Port Huron: the Port Huron Sports Hall of Fame and the Port Huron school district's "Wall of Fame" for outstanding former students. He also is the only person to have won the Michigan AP staffer of the year award twice. For three straight years he was runner-up in the national AP sports writer of the year competition.

He began his career with the St. Clair County Independent Press in 1963. He became editor and general manager of the Utica Daily Sentinel in 1969. He joined the AP in Detroit in 1971, starting in news and covering a wide range of stories, including the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. He was named Michigan AP sports editor in 1979. (April 20, 2002)