Annie ScogginOwen and Ellery Prothro consider sports a bond. Older brother Owen roots for the Kansas City Chiefs. Ellery, the younger sister, is a fan of the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Nuggets. They talk about the NFL, the NBA and, above all, college basketball and their jobs covering Wichita State.
The Prothro siblings, from Wichita, are enjoying an up-close look at their favorite sport and working together in a different setting from the usual brother-sister relationship. They are charged with chronicling Wichita State University’s most successful men’s basketball season since 2021 for The Sunflower, WSU’s independent, student-run news source.
“It’s fun, and (Owen) knows a lot about it and will answer any questions I have,” Ellery said. “We could talk about it for a long time, all the technicalities and what makes it so awesome. There are times I can say that Owen is my best friend.”
Owen, a senior majoring in communication – journalism and media production, is the sports editor and in his third year on the staff. Ellery, a freshman majoring in integrated marketing communication, is a photographer in her first year with The Sunflower.
Owen covers the Shockers daily, in addition to his duties editing stories and organizing coverage.
Ellery ProthroHe sits on press row at Charles Koch Arena for games. He attends interviews after games to gather information and explain to readers what happened and what the participants had to say. He joins weekly news conferences, always sitting in the first or second row and prepared with a list of topics in the media room to ask questions of coach Paul Mills.
“It’s another outlet for me to be able to watch a game, compartmentalize what’s happened and share that with the audience,” he said. “The one thing I would say is, ‘Don’t be afraid to ask something, no matter how silly it might sound.’ Be the person who asks.”
As he has improved as a writer, his stories, he said, offer more details and better explain the background and context of the sport.
“Picking out an important moment of the game and then going from there,” he said. “I have a better feel for those kinds of things.”
Ellery joins the group of photographers usually seated on the baselines to capture the action and pair her work with stories. She’s learning the craft of anticipating the action and showing readers a moment they missed from the stands or on TV.
“There’s always something new,” she said. “I really like good facial expressions. I think the best photo come when you least expect it, but when you put a lot of effort in.”
She sets a goal before every game to take a picture from a new angle or of a different subject than previous work. Kenyon Giles is one of her favorite Shockers to shoot. And she enjoys how Karon Boyd plays with a physical style. Her image of a crucial blocked shot by Boyd against Tulsa is one of her favorites.
“Karon Boyd – he always knows where the camera is,” she said. “He’s a good defender. I really like getting aggressive shots.”
The Prothros will cover the Shockers in the American Championship this weekend in Birmingham, Alabama. Wichita State, the second seed, plays at 4 p.m. Saturday, March 14 in a semifinal. While neither of them planned to work in journalism in college, they are enjoying the atmosphere of Charles Koch Arena and the excitement covering a big story as a family event.
Annie ScogginAbout Wichita State University
Wichita State University is Kansas' only urban public research university, enrolling more than 25,000 students between its main campus and the WSU Campus of Applied Sciences and Technology (WSU Tech), including students from every state in the U.S. and more than 100 countries. Wichita State and WSU Tech are recognized for being student-centered and innovation-driven.
Located in the largest city in the state with one of the highest concentrations in the United States of jobs involving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), Wichita State University provides uniquely distinctive and innovative pathways of applied learning, applied research and career opportunities for all of our students. The National Science Foundation ranked WSU No. 1 in the nation for aerospace engineering R&D, No. 2 for industry- and defense-funded engineering R&D and No. 9 overall for engineering R&D.
The Innovation Campus, which is a physical extension of the Wichita State University main campus, is one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing research/innovation parks, encompassing over 120 acres and is home to a number of global companies and organizations.
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