Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Cindy Luis selected for 2010-11 PacWest Media Award

PHOENIX, AZ – For her outstanding coverage of the Pacific West Conference, Honolulu Star-Advertiser sportswriter Cindy Luis has been named the second winner of the Pacific West Conference Media Award.

The PacWest announced the honor on Wednesday, August 24, from its media office in Phoenix. The sports information directors of the conference make the selection.

“Cindy Luis is an excellent writer and reporter who has provided outstanding coverage of the PacWest over the last few years,” Bob Hogue, commissioner of the PacWest, stated. “This honor is well deserved and I want to personally thank Cindy for her commitment to college athletics and the PacWest.”

The PacWest Media Award recognizes a member of the media - including but not limited to reporters, writers, and broadcasters - who provides outstanding coverage of the conference. Each sports information office in the league is permitted to nominate members of the media for the honor.

The award was instituted in 2009-10 with John Potter, the voice of Dixie State athletics, earning the inaugural honor.

“I truly appreciate the PacWest honor and am humbled,” Luis said. “We, as journalists, don't expect a reward for simply doing our jobs. Our reward is in telling the athletes' stories to the readers. They deserve the recognition.”

Luis worked in the sports department at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin from 1981 until 2010 and continued her career with the publication following its merger with the Honolulu Advertiser. Today the paper is known as the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

During her 30-year career, Luis has served as sports editor, assistant sports editor, columnist, and beat writer. She became the first female to head a sports department in Hawai‘i among media outlets.

Luis arrived in Honolulu from the Pacific Daily News in Guam where she was the assistant sports editor for six months and sports editor for three years (1978-81). When named in 1978, she was the first female sports editor in the Gannett newspaper chain and one of seven in the country.

Luis has been recognized for her sports writing by the American Volleyball Coaches Association, the Associated Press, Kalos Kagathos (international sports), the Women's Sports Foundation, Best of the West, the Hawaii Publishers Association and the Guam Publishers Association.

The Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association, the Honolulu Quarterback Club and the International Surfing Museum all have honored her.

Luis serves as the historian for the University of Hawai‘i Sports Circle of Honor, and is a voting member of the Hawai‘i Sports Hall of Fame, the Volleyball magazine men's and women's polls, and the Harris Interactive College Football Poll. She is a former judge for the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation and a 10-year voter on the AP men's basketball poll.

Alpha Gamma Delta, a national women's social fraternity founded in 1904, recently honored Luis as a Distinguished Citizen.

Luis is a native of San Diego and a 1977 graduate of UCLA where she earned university honors while obtaining her B.A. in communication studies.