By Nancy K. Crevier

The Newtown Bee Sportsman Award has been presented to a person who has done the most for sports in Newtown every year since 1986, said Newtown Bee publisher and executive editor Scudder Smith. So it came as no surprise to him that Sportsman Award committee members Sherri Baggett, Jack Shpunt, and Barbara Kasbarian selected former committee member and former Newtown Bee sports editor, the late Kim Harmon, as the recipient of the 2007 Newtown Bee Sportsman Award.

“There is really nobody more deserving than Kim,” said Mr Smith of the sports editor who died of a heart attack on December 15. “Kim was everywhere and if he couldn’t be at an event, he still had it covered. He did an amazing job.”

Furthermore, announced Mr Smith, the Newtown Bee Sportsman Award will be renamed as of 2008 as The Newtown Bee’s Harmon Award For Sportsperson Of The Year.

As sports editor at The Newtown Bee, Mr Harmon dedicated himself to highlighting local sports and local athletes, from recreational teams to school teams to adult sports teams. Former colleagues and school coaches recalled Kim Harmon as a person who cared about the people of whom he wrote each week, and who covered all sports and sports players fairly.

His many hours spent covering school sports, at home and on the road, were praised by the coaches with whom he shared a rapport over the 21 years that he covered sports in town.

An avid golfer, Mr Harmon was also a member of the Sandy Hook Vintage Base Ball Team, “Kim was really enamored by the idea and probably one of the first to get on board when the team was announced in 2005,” recalled the team’s founder, Ray Shaw, following Mr Harmon’s death in December. Mr Shaw was honored in 2006 with The Newtown Bee Sportsman Award.

His interaction with the athletes and their families, with coaches and recreation directors, and his understanding of the Newtown sports community, as well as his journalistic talents that brought those stories to residents of the town each week, made Mr Harmon the obvious choice for the 2007 award, said committee members.

There was no deliberation on who would receive the 2007 award when the committee gathered last month to select the recipient and committee member Sherri Baggett raised the nomination, said Ms Kasbarian. “It was unanimous. My first instinct was that the award should go to Kim, and everybody agreed. In knowing Kim over the years, it was obvious that he loved all of the sports that he covered. Sportsmanship always meant so much to him. He was passionate about all that he did for sports,” said Ms Kasbarian, who is also the director of Parks and Recreation in Newtown.

Committee member Jack Shpunt, who was himself the recipient of The Newtown Bee Sportsman Award in 1989, has coached recreational teams in Newtown for years. “I can’t think of anyone who put as much time and effort into sports as he did,” said Mr Shpunt, fully supporting the selection of Mr Harmon as the 2007 recipient. “[Kim Harmon] was so knowledgeable about sports, particularly about kids playing sports. He recognized how and why things happened in kids’ sports and that showed in his writing. He showed a strong love of what he was doing.”

A banquet honoring Mr Harmon is scheduled for April, at which time The Newtown Bee Sportsman Award, an inscribed plaque, will be presented to Mr Harmon’s widow, Becky Harmon, and family. Mr Harmon’s name will be added to the display plaque kept at the office of The Newtown Bee on Church Hill Road.