Photojournalist scores in AF, command awards

  • Published
  • By Dan Neely
  • 919th Special Operations Wing Public Affairs
DUKE FIELD, Fla. --  Tech. Sgt. Samuel King Jr's commander had to pause for air several times in front of a base-wide assembly as he rattled off a long list of top-level awards the Duke Field reservist recently won.

Sergeant King, a photojournalist assigned to the 919th Special Operations Wing's public affairs office, thoroughly dominated the 2010 media contests in two military commands - Air Force Reserve Command and in his civil service employment in Air Force Materiel Command. The NCO began by claiming first place with four AFRC journalism and photography awards and, likewise, six first-place awards in the AFMC contest.

In the AFRC contest, Sergeant King won in the categories of sports article, photojournalism, portrait/personality photo and illustrative photo. Within AFMC he had the best news article and article series, as well as top photos in the combat documentation, portrait, sports and pictorial categories.

Not finished there, the Kannapolis, N.C. native's work was submitted upward to compete in the annual Air Force Media Contest, where he placed second and third in the news and sports article categories, respectively.

Asked to try to put his laundry list of achievements into perspective, Sergeant King responded, "Career-wise, 2010 was a phenomenal year for me. I grew tremendously as a photographer and was lucky enough to tell some great stories last year."

He later described his incredible run was "a combination of realizing the potential of some rare opportunities and making the most out of those chances when they came along."
In his reservist role at Duke Field, Sergeant King is the NCO in charge of the 919th SOW public affairs office. As a federal civilian he is the 96th Air Base Wing's chief of internal information at Eglin Air Force Base.

While his roles and responsibilities in both jobs extend far beyond photography and journalism the reservist called the two crafts his runaway favorites.
"There's nothing else I'd rather be doing in my career," he said. "Once I discovered Air Force public affairs, particularly telling stories and taking photos, I knew I'd found the perfect fit."