Mike Cutillo remembers exactly when he caught the journalism bug: Mr. McKee’s seventh-grade English class at Durgee Junior High School. “We could write anything we wanted to, but it had to be in the style of a Greek myth,” Cutillo recalled.

Cutillo penned a fantasy football tale of the Minnesota Vikings facing off against the Dallas Cowboys. Mr. McKee returned the paper with the comment, “You should think about becoming a sports writer.”