NNA to honor retired Publisher Bill Sniffin with 2024 Amos Award honor

Aug 1, 2024

Bill Sniffin is pictured holding an old uranium miners helmet, signed for him by miners in appreciation for his work in exposing cancers that were occurring to them from the early uranium mining effort. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for the series of stories.
Sniffin

PENSACOLA, Florida — Recognized as one of the highest and most dignified tributes in community journalism, the General James O. Amos Award is presented to a working or retired newspaperman who has provided distinguished service and leadership to the community press and his community.

Retired Wyoming Publisher Bill Sniffin will be honored during the National Newspaper Association Foundation’s 138th Annual Convention & Trade Show held in Omaha, Nebraska, Friday evening, Sept. 27, 2024.

The Amos Award has been presented annually for the past 86 years to a single publisher in the country. Only one other Wyoming publisher has ever been honored with this lifetime achievement award — Milton Chilcott, 35 years ago in 1989.

Sniffin was nominated by former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson’s press secretary Stan Cannon of Lander and retired publisher Dave Simpson of Cheyenne, plus others.

At 78, Sniffin has had a long career in journalism that started when he was 17, writing a weekly column for the local Elgin, Iowa, newspaper — the Echo — and was editor of his high school paper at Valley High School.

Sixty-one years in, he is still writing a weekly column for the 73,000-circulation Cowboy State Daily, the dominant media in Wyoming. He was publisher of this daily digital medium from 2020 to 2022 when its circulation grew to 20,000. He is now publisher emeritus and mostly retired.

He was born in Wadena, Iowa, in 1946, the second of 11 children. After high school, he attended a Journalism Short Course at Iowa State University. He then became sports editor in Harlan, Iowa, and later sports editor at Denison, Iowa, where he attended Midwestern College.

In 1966, he became editor of the Harlan Newspapers, winning a number of national awards.

In 1970, he and his wife, Nancy, moved to Lander, Wyoming, where he took over the Lander Wyoming State Journal as editor-publisher. It was a consistent national award winner during the time they published it.

Over the next 29 years, they operated the Lander newspaper, founded three other newspapers and purchased a number of other newspapers in the region, plus a weekly in Maui.

In his nomination letter, community newspaper advisor and columnist Ken Blum wrote that Sniffin “has been and is still at age 78 an affable, extroverted doer of the first magnitude — a newspaperman and Wyoming lover through and through, whose boundless energy, work ethic, high character and considerable talent make for an ideal candidate of the National Newspaper Association’s Amos Award.”

Mark Raymond, Wall Street Journal alumnus (1978-1982) stated, “I think Bill’s very important work addressing the high incidence of cancer among uranium miners who worked at Jeffrey City overlaps the evidence of quality and community leadership. The series of stories, cartoons and editorials earned not only a first–place award for investigative reporting from the NNA but also played a role in the establishment of the $100 million trust fund established by Congress, allocating a $100,000 payment for each of the miners.

“Sen. Alan Simpson nominated Bill for a Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for that work. Very little of consequence in Lander, Wyoming, happened without Bill’s involvement. The One Shot Antelope Hunt, the local hospital, the museum, local education, community development, tourism, service organizations, and more all benefited from Bill’s involvement. Those of you who have served as publisher recognize the role of a successful publisher includes community leadership. His leadership was recognized in the community with Lander’s Lifetime Contribution Award.”

Retired publisher and 2021 Amos Award winner Larry Atkinson of Mobridge, South Dakota, wrote, “You’d be hard pressed to find anyone within the National Newspaper Association who has done more to promote community journalism while working tirelessly to contribute to his community, his state and even his nation. I’ve known Bill for almost 40 years and have watched with amazement his endless energy devoted to his love for community journalism, his community and his state.

“His efforts have extended beyond his home state of Wyoming as he has also owned community newspapers and other media-related ventures in Montana, South Dakota and Hawaii. He even was a guest journalism lecturer at the Center for Journalism Studies in Cardiff, Wales, following which he also hosted international journalism interns. So, you could even say his promotion of community journalism even extends to international efforts.”

Stan Cannon, retired attorney and former press secretary of U.S. Sen. Al Simpson (R-Wyoming), wrote in his nomination letter, “How do you measure a life that has given so much to his fellow man — to his neighbors, his community and his State? Bill Sniffin has had a special reach across state lines, affecting generations of families and lives of countless thousands in such a positive, uplifting way. Bill is an excellent businessman, epitomizing ethical behavior. He is a leader’s leader.”

Retired Wyoming Publisher Dave Simpson of Cheyenne wrote, “Bill is that rare example of an excellent writer and an excellent businessman. I think I've seen that combination twice in my 49 years in the business. He and his wife have owned or had ownership interests in newspapers, print shops, magazines, internet companies and ad agencies in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Hawaii. Because of the far-flung regional nature of his ownership, he owned an airplane and was a pilot for 30 years. He also was vice-chairman of the Wyoming Aeronautics Commission.”

Former Wyoming Tourism Director Gene Bryan (formerly of Cody, Wyoming) said, “I am pleased and honored to endorse the nomination of William ‘Bill’ Sniffin for the NNA Amos Award with a focus on his contributions to Wyoming’s tourism industry.”

Bryan continued, “I have known Bill for the better part of five decades, having first met him when I was in my first stint with the Wyoming Travel Commission and he was publisher/editor/janitor of the Wyoming State Journal in Lander.

“When I returned to Wyoming in January 1988 as director of the Travel Commission, Bill indicated his support early in my new position. He was helpful during an extremely critical period in the Wyoming tourism industry’s history — the fires of 1988. He and the rest of Wyoming media were 100% supportive of the public-private program we put together to overcome the worldwide perception that Yellowstone National Park had perished.

“Bill was later appointed to the Wyoming Travel Commission Board of Commissioners by Governor Mike Sullivan, and he proved to be an especially effective member. As chairman of the board, Bill proposed and we adopted the annual tourism revenue goal of ‘$2 Billion by 2000,’ i.e., $2 billion in tourism income to the state by the year 2000.”

Sniffin has also self-published six books about Wyoming, selling over 40,000 copies.

NNA Past President, Amos Award winner and publisher of the Swift County Monitor-News in Benson, Minnesota, Reed Anfinson, said, “After reading through Bill Sniffin's career and accomplishments, he exemplifies a publisher who worked with persistent energy for newspapers, his community and beyond the borders of his state. He is certainly deserving of the Amos Award.”

Past and present Amos Award winners are listed at https://www.nna.org/amos-and-mckinney-awards