Dear LoCoSports readers,
More than 10 years ago, my brother Kyle and I set out on a mission to create a premium local high school sports news website. Our purpose was to provide high school student-athletes in Loudoun County with the recognition they deserve and to give high school students and aspiring professionals an opportunity to hone their journalism and photography skills through genuine experience, mentorship, and training.
LoCoSports grew faster and grander than we could have ever imagined. Since 2014, we’ve mentored more than six dozen local students and community members who’ve wanted a place to cultivate their crafts as journalists, photographers, and designers. We provide news coverage to around 150,000 unique website visitors each year—more than one third of Loudoun’s population relies on LoCoSports for their high school sports news.
From the beginning, my pledge was to keep LoCoSports free to our readers. We wanted to create a community where local sports fans could read about last night’s big game, see photos of student-athletes in their hometown colors, check up on the standings of our local leagues, and come together to support our neighbors, our schools, and our future.
We try our best to provide coverage to each and every student-athlete in Loudoun—no matter their school, their sport, or their gender. I understand we’re not perfect. With a team of dedicated volunteers, we can’t cover every game at every school every night of the week, but we try our best, and I think we do a great job. In fact, many people are shocked to find out we are a part-time team of volunteers and not a fully operational news company.
I cannot begin to thank all the people who have supported LoCoSports over the years: my family, our committed team members, local coaches and ADs, and our loyal fans just to name a few.
Despite already spending countless hours over the past decade providing free news coverage, I felt a calling to give even more back to our community. So in 2015, I announced the Jeffrey C. Fowler Memorial Scholarship. Named in honor of my late uncle who shared my love of sports, the foundation has awarded nearly $50,000 in college scholarships to 25 LCPS graduates.
We’ve worked tirelessly to not only provide free local high school sports news coverage, but we’ve also raised more than $50,000 in scholarship money for students in our community—without asking for a penny in return.
Over the years, I’ve toyed with the idea of making LoCoSports a subscription-based service, like so many news organizations have. It would be a way to thank our dedicated team and to raise money for the scholarship fund. But every time it crosses my mind, I come back to the vision I set in 2014.
With that, I do not plan to start charging for content on LoCoSports.
However, in order to hold true to my pledge, I need your help.
If you enjoy LoCoSports, the free news coverage we provide, the mentoring we give to aspiring journalists and photographers, and the work we’re doing to raise and award scholarship money to students in our community, please join us for our second annual JCFM Scholarship Charity Cornhole Tournament on April 27 at ResQ BBQ in Leesburg. This tournament makes it possible to continue awarding scholarships to our Loudoun County students. All proceeds go directly to the scholarship fund.
The tournament will have three divisions: adult social, high school, and youth. We’d love to see some cornhole battles between some of our local high school teams and coaches as well as their parents.
Come join us for an afternoon sure to be full of fun memories as we continue to fund scholarships for deserving students in our community.
Thanks for reading,
Owen
Owl-in-Chief, LoCoSports
Founder & President, Jeffrey C. Fowler Memorial Scholarship
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