Stuart Groskreutz Receives MNHS League’s 2024 Outstanding Media Service Award
Litchfield native Stuart Groskreutz, a sports reporter-photographer-editor with the Stillwater Gazette, is the recipient of the Minnesota State High School League’s 2024 Outstanding Media Service Award in the print division. He was recognized last Saturday during the Boys Basketball State Tournament.
In April, Groskreutz – son of Bob & Arlene Groskreutz of Litchfield – is also set to receive a citation award from the Minnesota Football Coaches Association for meritorious service. His career in print journalism spans nearly three decades as he’s been the one patrolling the sidelines, keeping score, taking pictures, tapping a keyboard with award-winning coverage and spending hours editing and designing pages in the wee hours to deliver the news of the day to the readers of the Stillwater Gazette.
Groskreutz is a 1991 graduate of Litchfield High School. During his high school career, he played basketball and tennis. In 1989, the Dragons won the Class-A tennis championship. He played Number-1 doubles on that championship team. He went to Concordia (Moorhead) where he played tennis and majored in English.
Groskreutz got a taste of the sports journalism world at the West Central Tribune in Willmar working as an intern. He’d take calls on heavy prep sports nights, complete with typing in box scores and writing game summaries. He eventually covered the sports department during the summer months when other staff were vacationing.
Groskeutz later moved on to the Chippewa Falls Herald where he served four years as the sports editor. It was there that he met his wife, Sarah, and with her job situation in the Twin Cities, he eyed a move. The Stillwater Gazette had an opening in August of 2000 and he was selected to cover prep sports in the St. Croix River Valley, primarily Stillwater High School.
Groskreutz told the Minnesota State High School League that the recognition he’s receiving is humbling and a little uncomfortable as he prefers to blend into the background unnoticed rather than being the story.