KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Northwest Missouri State University has nominated football’s Kyle Zimmerman and softball’s Torri Blythe for the 2017 Ken B. Jones Award. Zimmerman graduated in December with a 3.95 GPA in Business Management. Blythe has a 3.63 GPA in Applied Health/Sport Sciences.

The award, which is in its 22nd year, is named in honor of the man who served as the MIAA’s first full-time commissioner for 16 years. Jones retired in 1997 and passed away in May 2004. He was inducted into the MIAA Hall of Fame in the inaugural Class of 2010.

The 24 league-wide nominees will be paired down to three male and three female finalists on Friday, May 26. Those six individuals will be invited to Kansas City for the MIAA Awards Ceremony which will be held on Monday, June 5, at the Kansas City Public Library-Plaza Branch. At the event one male and one female will be announced as the winners of the Ken B. Jones Award.

A 15-member panel of athletics directors, senior woman administrators, faculty athletics representatives and sports information directors – including a representative from each member institution – select the finalists.

Each nominee is judged in four areas: 2016-17 athletic accomplishments; career academic accomplishments; 2016-17 campus/community service; and career athletic and service achievements.

To be nominated, a student-athlete must have at least a 3.25 cumulative grade-point average as of February 1, and must have completed at least their junior season of eligibility in the 2016-17 academic year.

— Northwest Athletics —