October is my favorite month of the year. Perhaps it is ingrained in me from the start since my birthday is this month. But I have always loved fall weather, football season, watching playoff baseball, and celebrating Halloween and everything else that comes with preparing for that holiday.

The hot, humid Chicago summer weather is finally gone, and the bitterly cold winter has not yet arrived. It’ s a great time to get out hiking, biking, running and kayaking. Sitting outside by the fire pit or under the Friday night lights for a local game on a cool October evening is hard to beat.

And although most towns in my area celebrate Oktoberfest in late September, I’ m never going to complain about the food and festivals that come about this time of year.

October is also my favorite month on the Sports- Field Management magazine editorial calendar. Our annual Rising Star Awards issue is something I look forward to throughout the year, as it is a chance for me to meet some amazing sports field management industry professionals and help shine a spotlight on their careers.

As with past Rising Star classes, I couldn’ t be more impressed with this year’ s winners. Getting the chance to interview each winner is always a treat, and I’ m thankful for all of this year’ s winners and their willingness to share their stories. I know it is not easy for most people to talk about themselves, but I enjoyed my conversations with each of this year’ s award winners. My thanks to each of them for trusting me to tell their stories; I hope I have done them justice with the articles I have written for this issue.

My thanks also go out to everyone who nominated someone for this year’ s Rising Star Awards.

We had an amazing batch of nominations submitted throughout the past year. This awards program would not be possible without those of you who took time out of your busy schedules to nominate one of your peers.

It was an immense challenge to narrow the nominees down to this year’ s class of winners. To that end, I want to thank the SportsField Management magazine Editorial Advisory Board for their expert feedback regarding this year’ s Rising Star selections.

I hope you enjoy reading about this year’ s class of Rising Star Award winners. Please join me in congratulating them on this achievement.

And if you know someone deserving of recognition as a SportsField Management magazine Rising Star, please nominate them for our 2027 class. The nomination form can be found via https:// sportsfieldmanage mentonline. com / rising-star-awards / by clicking on the“ Nominate a Rising Star” hyperlink.

Congratulations once again to our 2026 SportsField Management magazine Rising Stars.

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