Eight shotgun athletes recently earned their spot to represent Team USA at the Olympic Games in Paris next month, but a Gainesville native is not among them.
Samantha Simonton, a sergeant in Army, missed making the team when she placed fourth in the qualifying. But two other Georgians will be on the mixed team: Vincent Hancock of Eatonton and Will Hinton of Dacula.
We first reported on Sgt. Simonton’s quest to make the team back in February: Gville native aiming for the Olympics (wgtjradio.com)
You can read more about those who did make the team and the qualifying here: Meet your Paris Olympic Shotgun Team | USA Shooting
About the Author
Ken Stanford is Online News Editor for GLORY 97.5, a position he has held since August 2022.
Ken was born in Moultrie, Georgia, and says he knew from the time he was 5 or 6 he wanted to be a “radio announcer.” That dream was realized when he was hired by Moultrie radio station WMTM in 1960 at the age of 15 as a weekend disc jockey. A 1963 graduate of Moultrie (now Colquitt County) High School, he has spent his whole career in Georgia working for stations in Atlanta, Marietta, and Gainesville – most recently as News Director for 40 years at WDUN in Gainesville. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force Reserves.
Ken retired in 2011 but came out of retirement last year to help GLORY, on a part-time basis, beef-up its online news presence.
He is the recipient of many Associated Press awards and is a former judge of state and national Associated Press broadcast news contests. In 2005, he was presented with the Georgia Associated Press Broadcasters Association’s President’s Award for Excellence in Journalism and in 2019 was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame.
He lives in Gainesville with his wife of 52 years, the former Sandra McKnight of Clio, Alabama, and they have one child, a daughter, Lisa, who lives in Cumming with her family.
