EATON — Our newest staff writer/photographer, Oliver Sanders, adds a variety of life’s experiences to The Register-Herald as a sports journalist.
Sanders recently spent the 2015-2016 school year with The South Haven Tribune covering local area sports in Van Buren County, located in southwest Michigan. His first experience in sports journalism began in 1998 with the Sturgis Journal as a freelance sports photojournalist in Sturgis, Michigan.
A Michigan native, Sanders is a recent graduate of Miami University in Oxford, earning a bachelor’s degree in Geography in 2014 as one of the oldest graduates of that year.
Sanders learned to speak Chinese and Japanese at Miami, and is knowledgeable of Asian and African cultures. He was a very active participant in the international community at Miami, having membership in several student organizations such as the African Student Union, Chinese Student Scholarship Association, Korean American Student Association, International Student Union, and the Japanese Culture and Language Club.
Sanders served as an infantryman in Operation Desert Storm back in 1991 with the US Army’s 24th Division. He is currently an annual member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. His previous employment involved seven years as an over-the-road truck driver, enabling him to gain a nationwide perspective of the country. He has led a long history of organized sports participation. He was a four sport varsity letterman at Decatur High School in football, wrestling, track and baseball. After high school, Oliver returned to sports, earning a varsity letter in one year of football at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois in 1992.
Since earning an honorable discharge from the Army in 1991, Sanders has contributed six years as a little league umpire, five years as a high school wrestling official, and has traveled to over 200 college sports venues comprised of teams from the Big Ten, Mid-American, and smaller colleges in the Midwest.
As a man of many interests, Sanders enjoys a wide variety of hobbies and interests outside of sports. He enjoys tabletop and historic miniature gaming, console and computer games, archery, canoeing, cooking, traveling to U.S. National Parks, studying international cultures, summer festivals, and Cedar Point. He loves to talk about military history, and he is an avid reader of historical and current world conflicts.
Sanders will cover Preble County and other area sports activities, from the high school varsity level to community organizations. He will also cover Miami University RedHawk sports in Oxford, as well as occasional area non-sporting events.
