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Bri Nellis Wins Fourth Straight Gold From National High School Sports Publication Awards (05/15/15)

Clarion Area High School football photographer Bri Nellis has received this year’s Gold Award (the highest award) in the Public School, Supporters/Fans (Student Enrollment 1-500) Category for her publication “Run This Town.” The book is a hardcover, full color recap of the Clarion Bobcats’ 2014 Varsity Football season.

 (Photo by Cindy Nellis) Bri Nellis with her award winning publication

(Photos by Cindy Nellis) Bri Nellis with her award winning publications

This is Nellis’ fourth straight year to win the Gold Award.

Nellis’ previous Gold Award winners include “Clarion Football – One Team – One Goal” (2011), “Clarion Football – The Boys of Fall” (2012) and “Clarion Football – “BROTHERHOOD” ” (2013). Her books have contained photos by herself and various other photographers, including, among others, fellow Clarion football photographers, Sharron Martin and Gary Wiant and news articles from various news papers and websites around the area, including the Oil City Derrick, the Tri-County Sunday from Dubois, the Clarion News, D9Sports.com and Clarion Sports Zone.

The organization awards Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards in various categories, as well as awarding an overall Grand Prize Winner.

According to the NHSSP’s publicationawards.com website: “The National High School Sports Publication Awards are designed to recognize excellence in the preparation of Media Guides and Souvenir Programs that call attention to athletic teams at the secondary school level throughout the United States of America. It does not matter what sport or sports your entry promotes. It does not matter if your school is public or private, large or small. It does not matter if your entry was assembled by students, volunteer parents, or professionals. The National High School Sports Publication Awards has a category designed to recognize your commitment to excellence.”

Bri with this year's award winner

Bri with this year’s award winner

In describing her labor of love for Bobcat Football, Nellis said, “My goal for every book is to tell the story of the season and to capture the behind the scenes pictures on the sidelines.”

Photographing the Cats’ is a way Nellis can follow her brothers’ football careers. She said, “I’m thankful that I’m able to what my brothers grow up and support them on the sidelines when I’m taking pictures. I know they were dragged to a ton of my games growing up and now I’m excited that we’ve switched positions and I get to see them playing the sports that they love.”

She described what goes into producing the books, saying, “Many hours go in to making the books, from taking/editing the pictures, designing layouts and inserting the articles…, but it’s all worth it in the end.”

“I design my book in Adobe InDesign and then publish it through Blurb. She also has a website and said, “I’m redesigning my website for next season! You can find pictures/information on brinellisphotography.com or Facebook.com/brinellisphoto.”

It all stated from simple beginnings. Nellis, stated “I started taking pictures when I was in 11th grade for the yearbook and it kind of evolved from that. I never intended to make a collection of books. In 2011, I made one book for a guy and then Coach Wiser saw it, loved it and suggested that I make one for the entire team…5 books later…”

And she has expanded her coverage. She mentioned, “This year I was able to make it to almost all of the Junior High games and had so many pictures that I decided to make a book.”

Even though she does professional quality photographs, with her photos accompanying articles of Bobcat games, by the Derrick, Tri-County Sunday, Courier Express, D9Sports.com and Clarion Sports Zone, she says, “I’m not thinking of photography as a career, just a hobby!”

Nellis, the daughter of Ken and Cindy Nellis of Clarion, is majoring in Communications and minoring in Marketing and Web Development at Clarion University.

She spent the last semester “creating magical moments at Disney through the Disney College Program and… loving every minute of it.

“This summer, I’m heading off to Erie for an internship with Epic Web Studios, a digital marketing, website design, and social media firm. Although when football season rolls around, you’ll find me back on the sidelines.”

Bri is thankful to all the folks who have made the publications a reality. But it is this community that is indebted to her for this amazing work. I speak for all involved in the Clarion Area Football Program and community in saying, Thank you Bri for this wonderful labor of love, and gift for posterity. CONGRATULATIONS ON THIS GREAT AND WELL DESERVED HONOR, BRI!!!!”

Join us in sharing your thanks and congratulations to Bri, by going to our Facebook page and posting a comment.