MAGNOLIA, Ark. – Southern Arkansas University Director of Athletic Communications Jacob Pumphrey has announced the hiring of Stephen Featherston to the position of Assistant Director of Athletic Communications for the current 2021-22 athletic year. The official announcement comes on the opening weekend of fall 2021 competition for the Muleriders.
 
"I am extremely excited to welcome Stephen into our Mulerider Athletics family," remarked Pumphrey. "He brings a lot of experience from his time as a graduate assistant at ETBU, received an outstanding recommendation, and has already transitioned well. I can't wait to see how much he will impact our department, student-athletes, coaches and university."
 
Featherston, a native of Mexia, Texas, comes to Magnolia from Division III East Texas Baptist University where he served as a graduate assistant for over two years under longtime and well-respected SID Adam Ledyard.
 
While at ETBU, Featherston, who brings an ever-growing knowledge base of video production to the department, assisted with the website management, pregame, postgame and game day coverage and social media content creation for all 22 of the Tiger athletic programs. He served as the lead statistician for volleyball, baseball and softball, while also overseeing all live-streaming operations for ETBU home athletic events.
 
Featherston and Ledyard were honored for their graphic design work in the 2019-20 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Publications and Digital Design Contest where the ETBU softball and men's basketball schedule posters ranked first and second, respectively, in District 6 of the college division.
 
Prior to joining Ledyard's staff in Marshall, which was named the 2019-20 American Southwest Conference Sports Information Department of the Year, Featherston was a student assistant in the sports information office at Howard Payne University. In his one year, he served as the primary contact for the men's and women's golf and tennis programs in addition to assisting the office in day-to-day and game day operations.
 
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Communications from HPU in December of 2018 and most recently received his Master of Arts in Strategic Communications from ETBU in August of 2021. Featherston is a CoSIDA member.