Dorman Hawkins prepares to announce the homecoming game between Farmersville and Gainesville last Friday. Photo by David Wolman / C&S Media

By David Wolman

[email protected]

Dorman Hawkins didn’t have any experience as a public-address announcer when he began announcing junior varsity football games for Farmersville in 2019.

Growing up, he was a fan of sports broadcasting. He watched NFL football games that were called by the late Pat Summerall and John Madden during the 1990s and the current ESPN Monday Night Football broadcasting team of play-by-play announcer Joe Buck and analyst Troy Aikman.

But when the position of public address announcer at Farmer Stadium became open, Hawkins was interested. He knew the players that were in the football program and wanted a way to still be around the team.

One year later, Hawkins began announcing varsity football games for Farmersville and continues to this day.

Hawkins’ dedication to Farmersville paid off the morning of Sept. 22 when he was presented with the “Voice of the Game” award by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football at the team’s practice facility. He was one of 10 award winners statewide.

“That was kind of surprising,” he said. “I didn’t hear anything about it until they called me up. Once it set in, it was very exciting because I put a lot of time and effort into presenting to the public a good product.”