October 17, 2022

Marc Zumoff & Kevin Negandhi to Be Honored at the Annual PAB Gold Medal Dinner

By: wzeiders

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 17, 2022

Contact: Alex Styer
asyter@bellevuepr.com
215-893-4293

Other honorees include David Boardman, Lynn Deppen, Alan Frank, and the Lynett-Haggerty Family

PHILADELPHIA – On Thursday, December 15th, Marc Zumoff, Philadelphia’s beloved 76ers play-by-play announcer, and Kevin Negandhi, ESPN anchor and Philadelphia native, will be honored at the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters (PAB) Annual Gold Medal Dinner. The event will honor these two Philadelphia icons alongside Temple University’s dean of the Klein College of Media and Communications, David Boardman; The Lynett-Haggerty Family, owners of Times-Shamrock Communications; Lynn Deppen of Forever Media. The PAB Gold Medal Dinner will be held for the first time in downtown Philadelphia at the Ritz-Carlton.

“We are honoring a very special group of broadcast professionals that greatly contribute to the success and prestige of our association,” said Joe Conti, President of the PAB. “I’d like to throw in a special shoutout to the Lew Klein College of Communications at Temple University, as three of their alumni are being honored at this event.”

 

GOLD MEDAL:

The Gold Medal is the PAB’s highest award of distinction. The recipient must be a native Pennsylvanian, been raised in Pennsylvania, and recognized through accomplishments in the arts, communication, education, entertainment, business, public service, science, sports, or philanthropy.

Marc Zumoff, Philadelphia born and raised, is the current associate director of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media at his very own, Temple University. Zumoff has a passion for sports media and is largely involved in the industry teaching play-by-play classes at Temple and authoring his own textbook as well, Total Sports Media: Production, Performance, and Career Development. Zumoff recently retired as play-by-play announcer and voice of the Philadelphia 76ers after a career spanning more than 39 seasons covering the team. He now gives back by donating his time and talents to Philadelphia Youth Basketball and co-chairing a yearly golf outing to raise money for Maccabi USA.

 

BROADCASTER OF THE YEAR:

Receiving the 2022 Broadcaster of the Year honor is the venerable, Kevin Negandhi.

Kevin Negandhi is another graduate of Temple’s Klein College and is now an ESPN anchor for the 6 P.M. SportsCenter show. Prior to his start at ESPN, he held the position of sports director at WWSB-TV in Sarasota, Florida. There he won three Associated Press awards for “Best Sports Cast,” and “Best Breaking Sports News”. In addition to being a guest-host on Get Up!, Negandhi has also hosted the Rose Parade on ABC from 2018-2020. Starting in 2015, Negandhi has hosted the Special Olympic World Games and USA Games on ESPN and ABC. Additionally, he hosted the first ever NBA Draft aired on ABC in 2020 and continues in that role. He is the first anchor of Indian-American descent to be on a national sports network in American television history. Negandhi joined ESPN in September 2006. He and his wife Monica have three children.

 

JANET & LEW KLEIN “MAKING A DIFFERENCE” AWARD:

The Janet & Lew Klein “Making a Difference” Award is given annually to either a person or an organization that has truly helped “Make a Difference” in the world.

 

This year’s recipient is David Boardman, Dean of the Lew Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University. Boardman has held this position since 2013, coming from being Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of The Seattle Times, which won four Pulitzer Prizes under his leadership. Since then, he has done great work for Klein College and the broadcasting industry in general, and is responsible for naming his school for broadcast pioneer Lew Klein. Five years after Boardman’s start at Klein, the college was awarded the nation’s top Equity and Diversity Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. This year, Boardman was named “Administrator of the Year” nationally by that organization and the Scripps Howard Foundation. He is also the Founding Chair of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the non-profit owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and serves on the executive committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

 

PAB HALL OF FAME:

The PAB 2022 Hall of Fame inductees will be Lynn Deppen, and Alan Frank.

 

Lynn Deppen is the president and shareholder of Forever Media, Inc., and is responsible for all operations, business, and growth of Forever Media, with 62 radio stations located throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. In 1977, he graduated from the Electronic Institutes in Harrisburg with an associates degree and began to make his mark in the industry right away. Deppen is a pioneer in the broadcasting industry, building many new radio stations from scratch. Before his start at Forever Media Lynn worked at broadcasting companies like Taft Broadcasting in New York, and Plough Broadcasting in Florida.

 

SPOTLIGHT AWARD:

This year, a special PAB Spotlight award is being presented to the Lynett-Haggerty family of Times-Shamrock Communications, in honor of the their more than 100 years of continuous ownership and operation of independent media outlets.

Times-Shamrock is a media company based in Scranton, Pennsylvania and owned by the Lynett and Haggerty families. In 1922, E.J. Lynett signed on one of Scranton’s very first radio stations and it is still operated by that same company 100 years later, WEJL. Times-Shamrock owns and operate several radio stations all throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania including WEJL “ESPN Radio”, WEZX “Rock 107” and WQFM “QFM”, in addition to stations in Baltimore, Maryland and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

About the PAB:

The Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters endeavors to promote collaboration between radio and television broadcast station owners, managers and staff across the Commonwealth. We assist our member stations in serving their communities, audiences and advertisers through FCC licensed free, over-the-air broadcast program operations.

 

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