NATCHITOCHES – While Northwestern State's sports information office received awards for media guides and broadcasting from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association on Sunday, the couple usually in the background of hosting media for many NSU athletic events was in the spotlight as Ronnette and Charles Pellegrin received the LSWA's prestigious Mac Russo Award.
 
The Mac Russo Award has been presented annually since 1981 to a person whose longterm involvement "contributes to the progress and ideals of the LSWA." The Pellegrins are the first couple to win the honor, and the first recipients who have not been sportswriters or public relations professionals.
 
She is in her 10^th year as the administrative assistant in the sports information office. Dr. Charles Pellegrin is a history professor at NSU who assists with press box and press row operations for home NSU sports events. 
 
"Ronnie and Charles are important and treasured members of the LSWA family. They are such great ambassadors for Northwestern, and for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. They give of themselves unselfishly for the benefit of LSWA members visiting NSU, and for everyone involved with the Hall of Fame. We wanted to express our admiration and thanks for who they are and what they mean to the LSWA in a permanent and fitting tribute, with what we consider the most prestigious award presented by our organization," said outgoing LSWA president Jim Kleinpeter of the New Orleans Times-Picayune/NOLA.com.
 
In the annual LSWA awards for excellence in writing, publications and broadcasting around the state, NSU captured three awards.
 
Tony Taglavore of the Demon Sports Network, which the NSU SID office helps coordinate, earned third place for radio play-by-play broadcasting, with his call of the Lady Demon basketball team's NCAA Tournament battle with Tennessee. LSU's Jim Hawthorne, a Northwestern graduate, won the category for his call of LSU's game-winning 99-yard drive against Arkansas, while venerable Louisiana Tech announcer Dave Nitz was the contest runner-up.
 
Second-year assistant SID Matt Fowler was the second-place winner in a media guide category for editing the 2014 Demon baseball brochure. It was the second LSWA contest award for Fowler in his two years as a full-time SID staffer, after the 2012-13 Lady Demon basketball guide was a third-place winner in 2013.
 
Doug Ireland, SID since 1989, also won a second-place award for editing the Demons' men's basketball media guide, which featured design work by Fowler. Men's basketball and football guides are judged in a  different category in the LSWA contests.
 
For Ireland, it was his 23^rd LSWA award in the last 15 years. He was also the 2001 Mac Russo Award winner.
 
The honors were announced at the annual LSWA Awards Brunch at The Landing Restaurant in Natchitoches, following the 2014 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration which NSU sports information helps to host each year.