R.J. Conroy, of North Providence High School, won all-division honors in both his junior and senior seasons.

It’s called the Dick Reynolds Correspondent Award. Every year, The Providence Journal presents the award to a graduating Rhode Island high school senior who during his or her high school career served as a correspondent to the Journal sports department by supplying scores and/or statistics of an athletic team from the student’s school.

The award is named in honor of Dick Reynolds, the late Journal sports writer who spent nearly 50 years, from the 1930s through the 1970s, chronicling the accomplishments of Rhode Island high school athletes.

But Dick Reynolds was so much more than a sports writer.

He not only wrote about the accomplishments of young student/athletes, but he also did whatever was necessary to make the athletes’ high school careers special.

He organized all-star games; he was one of the moving forces behind the People-to-People program, which took teams of Rhode Island high school athletes to foreign countries in an effort to broaden their education through sports and he never refused a request to speak at an awards banquet — even though he never ate the free meals.

Basically if it needed to be done, he did it.

That’s why you can’t help but think Dick Reynolds would have loved to have written the story of North Providence High’s R.J. Conroy, the winner of this year’s Reynolds Correspondent Award.

Conroy is a talented athlete. A hard-hitting lineman for the North Providence football team, he earned all-division honors in both his junior and senior seasons. He could have figured that playing football was the only thing he needed to do to help his high school’s athletic program succeed.

But just like Dick Reynolds did more than just write stories, Conway did more for the North Providence High athletic program than just make tackles and block charging linebackers.

Besides being a football star for four years, he was the scorekeeper for both the Cougars boys and girls basketball teams. When the games were finished, he would report the scoring summaries and highlights to the Journal sports department so that his classmates on the basketball teams would receive recognition for their accomplishments in the newspaper and on the Journal’s projo.com HSGameTime Web site.

“Everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame, and it was my job to help them receive it,” said Conway, who will begin studying for a career in secondary education at Westfield (Mass.) State College this fall.

“[Conroy] has been an integral part of the basketball program at North Providence,” wrote North Providence boys basketball coach Paul Rizzo. “Robert had many responsibilities as manager and spent more time in the gym than many of the players and coaches. He was responsible for setting up the gymnasium for all levels of our program, varsity, junior varsity and freshman. Before every game Robert had to get to the gym early, set up the chairs, clean the floor and prepare the water bottles for the players. During the game, he was the official scorer. After the game was over, he was responsible for calling in the final score and box score to the Providence Journal.”

In addition to being a two-time, all-division selection, Conroy was also named to the R.I. Football Coaches Association’s Academic All-State team. He served as his class treasurer in both his freshman and sophomore years; was a member of the drama club and was a three-year member of the school’s Mock Trial Club.

He also was a student assistant to North Providence athletic director Glenn Williams, for whom, , in addition to game-manage and equipment-maintain ace duties, he also helped coordinate special athletic-department events.

When he wasn’t helping foster the image of the North Providence High athletic program, he was an assistant coach for a youth football team, served as a Little League baseball umpire and a youth-league basketball official.

“I knew I could always count on Robert,” Rizzo continued. “He did not miss a single game in his entire high school career. His sense of responsibility and loyalty show a level of maturity that is not found in many high school students. Robert was more than just the team manager. He did it all.”

Just like Dick Reynolds did.

jgillool@projo.com