Bio

     Payton was named Sports Information Director at the University of Rio Grande on August 29, 2011.
     His primary duties include updating the school's athletic website, writing news releases for each of the school's athletic programs, coordinating video streaming of home athletic events and serving as the play-by-play voice of the RedStorm's men's and women's basketball teams, as well as its baseball and softball teams.
     In 2016, he was recognized as the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC) Sports Information Director of the Year.
     Prior to his arrival at Rio Grande, Payton spent 18-1/2 years as the Sports Editor of The Wayne County News in Wayne, W.Va., where he won numerous WV Press Association awards for Best Sports News Writing, Best Sports Page or Pages, Best Sports Section and Best Special Section.
     He is also a past president of the WV Sports Writers Association and served as the chairman of its high school baseball All-State committee from 2005-2011.
     Payton has also served as a sports play-by-play voice of WFGH 90.7 FM, the student/volunteer-operated public radio station owned by the Wayne County (WV) Board of Education and located on the campus of Tolsia High School, since the fall of 1992. In 1993, he received a Best Sports Play-by-Play award in Small Market Radio from the WV Associated Press.
     Payton has also done play-by-play work for nearly every station in the Huntington (W.Va.) radio market and was a fill-in voice on University of Rio Grande men's basketball broadcasts on occasion.
     He resides in Gallipolis, Ohio.