Mitchell Radio Group is pleased to announce the hiring of Jake Hibbard as Information Director and Sports Director. Jake will be taking over play-by-play broadcasting duties for Mitchell High School and Dakota Wesleyan University. He replaces the recently retired Tim Smith, who had been broadcasting sports in Mitchell since 1973. Smith was recognized four times as the South Dakota Sportscaster of the Year by the Nationals Sports Media Association.
“I’m so excited to be coming into a sports-crazed community with such a great tradition on the radio,” Hibbard said. “Tim Smith is a broadcasting legend, and I’m humbled by the precedent he has set.”
Jake was raised in a small town in Southwest Montana before relocating to Salt Lake City to pursue a degree in journalism at the University of Utah.
Following college, Jake moved to Wyoming where he has been covering and broadcasting high school sports since 2013. He was awarded “Best Play-by-Play” in 2019 and 2020 by the Wyoming Association of Broadcasters and was a finalist in 2020 for Wyoming Sportscaster of the Year.
“The first thing I noticed when I made my initial trip to Mitchell was Dakota Wesleyan University lit up at night. It’s a beautiful campus,” Hibbard said. “And then there’s The Corn Palace. I can’t wait to see it completely packed on a winter night for the high school and college seasons.”
If you see Jake around town, come on up and say hello. There’s a good chance he will be walking his corgi/beagle mixed-breed dog Opie, who is a little too big to be a wiener dog, so is instead referred to as a “kielbasa dog.”