Ken Fox

(12-4-2024) One of Michiana’s most highly respected journalists, Ken Fox of the Elkhart Truth is the recipient of the 2024-25 IHSAA Distinguished Media Service Award for District 1.

Fox’s contributions to education-based athletics will be recognized at North Side Gymnasium in Elkhart on Friday night as the Elkhart Lions host the Concord Minutemen in boys basketball action. IHSAA Commissioner Paul Neidig and Sports Information Director Jason Wille will make the presentation.

A fixture on the high school sports scene in northern Indiana for 40 years, Ken has worked for the Elkhart Truth since 2009, including the last eight years as the newspaper’s sports editor.

He was struck by the “newspaper bug” while still in school having covered his first high school game in August 1980 at the age of 18..

A 1980 graduate of Plymouth High School, where he played baseball for coach Bill Nixon and was part of two sectional and conference championship teams, Ken had the opportunity to cover his high school on the grandest stage. He was able to witness Plymouth’s legendary drive to the 1982 IHSAA boys basketball state championship. That final game saw the Pilgrims, led by future Hall of Fame guard Scott Skiles, capture an improbable state title and is widely remembered and celebrated as one of Indiana’s greatest games.


Shortly after graduating from Bethel College in 1984, where he also played baseball for four years, Ken was hired by the South Bend Tribune. He worked in the newspaper’s Mishawaka office covering news and sports for four years before being hired in 1988 to cover just sports and work in South Bend. There, he covered area high school sports, the Chicago Bears for six years and also wrote about 11 Indianapolis 500’s and six Brickyard 400 races.

Fox also spent several years with the Plymouth Pilot News where he wrote for sports editor Bill Bilinski, including Plymouth’s heart-breaking loss in 2005 on Luke Zeller’s buzzer-beating, half-court shot in the state championship game. He also reported on two Oregon-Davis state championship teams in 2007 when both the Bobcats’ girls and boys teams captured the Class 1A titles, the first school to do so in the same school year

Fox said-

‘I loved (covering) other things, including a few NBA and MLB games along the way. But my heart is and always has been with high school sports.”

This is the 38th year the IHSAA has recognized outstanding members of the Indiana news media from each of its three legislative districts for excellence in the coverage of high school sports. District 1 covers 22 counties across northern Indiana