By Cameron Maynard, The Logan Banner
LOGAN COUNTY, W.Va. — Sunday was a sad day for Logan County and the surrounding areas as they lost a phenomenal sports reporter, a Man High School Hall of Famer, and an even better human being.
Teddy Paynter, who was a sports reporter at The Logan Banner from 1973-1991 and was a staple in the county for a very long time, passed away at the age of 68 after battling liver cancer. He was diagnosed with the disease in early February.
Last fall, Paynter was inducted into the 2023 Man High School Athletics Hall of Fame class.
Paynter graduated from Man High in 1973 and was a recipient of the Distinguished Service to Man High School Sports. He was the first writer at The Logan Banner assigned to every Man High School sport.
He was also President of the Triadelphia Little League and coached tee ball as was as Little League. He coached the Man Dolphins and Man Rams for Midget League Football.
In 1991, Paynter took a job in Bluefield, WV as a Sports Editor. He has also worked at the Williamson Daily News, was editor at PMC’s Medical Leader, and he most recently served as a TV, radio, and website Sports Director at Mountain Top Media in Pikeville (KY) before he passed.
Last football season marked Paynter’s 50th year of sports coverage, and over the years he covered the likes of WVU, Marshall, Virginia Tech, Virginia football, basketball, Minor League Baseball with Princeton and Bluefield, NASCAR, the Super Bowl, and the College Football Championships. He earned honors from the WV Press Association, the KY Press Association, and the KY Broadcaster’s Association.
Paynter’s impeccable character as well as his excellence in the sports media business certainly didn’t, hasn’t, and will never go unnoticed.
Mike Crosby, a 1992 Man High graduate who played baseball there and now serves as the head coach of the Hillbillies baseball team, set the tone in an interview on Sunday night for how people truly felt about Paynter.
Crosby never saw Paynter have a harsh word with anybody, and the former said he loves Paynter dearly and that he was a great friend that loved promoting players for the community to see and know.
“It’s very disheartening because I know he moved to Kentucky and everything, but even after he went to Kentucky, he was still always 100 percent about the Hillbillies, Man, and Logan County in general,” Crosby said. “This was his home, and he was the best at what he did. If anybody’s in that business, they should look at how he went about everything if they’re striving to be the best. Because I’ve said it for years, the articles that he would write about us always made me sound better than what I was as a player.”
