Kevin Clark Mills, 50, of Owls Head and Lewiston, Maine, died Aug. 4 in Owls Head.
Mills was an award-winning author and journalist. He was employed by several news organizations, including The Boston Globe, before joining the Sun Journal of Lewiston.
He had been part of the Sun Journal sports department since 1992.
“Kevin’s legacy is that he made the Sun Journal sports page a more diverse place,” Kalle Oakes, a former Sun Journal sports editor and colleague, said in the Sun Journal’s obituary on Mills.
“He was given the assignment of covering mostly girls’ sports when he came to our newsroom, and he more than embraced it. He became Maine’s voice for girls’ athletics, and later for the incredible Somali influence on the sports programs in Lewiston-Auburn. Kevin gave those athletes and their stories the respect and the professionalism they deserved,” Oakes said.
Mills received numerous awards, including the 1993, 2001 and 2002 Maine Press Association’s Weekend Sports Feature of the Year, first place; the 2007, 2012 and 2013 Maine Press Association’s Weekend Sports Feature of the Year, second place; the 2007 Maine Press Association’s Daily Sports Feature of the Year, first place; the 1999, 2005 and 2012 Maine Press Association’s Daily Sports Feature of the Year, second place; the 2003 Maine Press Association’s Daily Sports Feature of the Year, third place; the 2001 and 2013 New England Press Association’s Weekend Sports Feature of the Year, second place.
He also received the 2002 Maine Basketball Coaches Association’s Media Award, and the 2009 Maine Interscholastic Athletic Administrator’s Association Media Award.
His first historical novel, “Sons and Daughters of the Ocean,” was published in 2009. Subsequent novels are “Breakwater” in 2011 and “Sea of Liberty” in 2014. “Sidelined,” a book about his life as a sportswriter, told in the form of short stories, was published in 2011.
He leaves a brother, Wesley; a sister, Doreen; six nieces and nephews.
The obituaries were written, at least in part, from published reports by Bulletin correspondent Nimra Aziz, an undergraduate student in the Northeastern University School of Journalism.