About

The Awesome Guide to Springfield (TAG Magazine) was formed by the merger of three independent media sources – TheFourFour (music), RecSpecsOnline (sports) and SAUCE (arts, culture, community). TAG’s stable of journalists (and a tech guy), all born-and-raised in Springfield, take pride in their knowledge of the city and ability to shift to meet the needs of our community. In short, we grew weary of the media giant’s complacency and inability to provide the news/perspective – points which are magnified by the fact that we have all been associated with the other outlets. So, here we are, The Awesome Guide to Springfield, let us know what you want from your media.

TAG is…

Allen Vaughan

Sports Editor / Contributor

Allen Vaughan is an award-winning, self-employed journalist living in Springfield, Missouri. Born and raised in Urbana, Allen found himself drawn to sports, music and entertainment, despite growing up in a town of 350 and a small, rural school district. Still, he found ways to inject his personality into all of his projects.
TAGsgf.com is the fruit of all of his labor. After working at the Springfield News-Leader for the past six years — four as the lead high school sports reporter — Allen decided it was time to raise the stakes. With the lack of any local written sports opinion, TAGsgf.com is the vehicle to deliver that perspective and context that you have been missing.

Awards:
• 2009 Associate Press Sports Editors national award — Explanatory, circulation 40,000-100,000, “One arm”
• 2009 Missouri Press Association — Best sports news story or package, No. 2, “One Arm”

Brett Johnston

Arts & Community Editor / Contributor

In writing and in life, there is only one Brett Johnston. He has never been one to accept fitting any one style or description and his
journalistic style reflects that. While his main responsibilities at TAG are similar to the work he did as the owner and Editor In Chief of S.A.U.C.E. Magazine–covering the local visual and performing arts, cultural and community events–his influence extends to every niche and category of coverage on TAG while infusing the site’s video and audio with his unusual voice.

In the six years since graduating from Drury University, Brett worked as a writer and page designer at the Springfield News-Leader before setting up S.A.U.C.E. (which stood for Springfield Arts, Underground, Culture and Entertainment) in 2009. He eventually chose to change S.A.U.C.E. from a monthly print magazine to a constantly updated blog, a move that laid the groundwork for what he does for TAG today.

Chris DeRosier

Music Editor / Contributor

Chris DeRosier is an award-winning journalist who has worked professionally in Springfield since 2005. He spent two and a half years at 417 Magazine, providing personality profiles, dining coverage and more while helping launch the magazine’s sister publication, GO Magazine, in spring of 2005. While working at GO DeRosier led the magazine’s local music and nightlife coverage. For someone who had been going to shows in the city since middle school but got away from it during his college years, it was a chance to see and experience some familiar territory from a new perspective.

He left 417 and GO in July of 2007, and it wasn’t long before local musicians started asking him to “do something” because no one was covering live music anymore. After some early hesitation due to needing a break, DeRosier and Scott Perket launched TheFourFour.com, a local music news and information website, in February 2008. Local music fans, musicians, venues and promoters alike responded to the site and its coverage, leading to community-oriented events such as FourFourFest, an all-local music festival held downtown in 2008 and 2009, and to co-hosting “Rock Talk,” the city’s only two-hour, all-local music program on Sunday nights, on what was then Z 106.7 FM.

Sensing the need for a new springboard to bring local music and entertainment to the general public, DeRosier helped co-found TAGSGF.com, the website you’re reading now. As someone who remembers publications such as local independent paper The Pulp in his formative years, he hopes to pick up where previous local music and entertainment publications such as that left off while taking TAG’s coverage to places those papers could have never hoped to reach.

Scott Perket

Web Editor / Designer / Contributor

Scott is a print and web designer based out of Springfield, MO. He has worked as a designer at Whitaker Publishing and Robison Creative Studios. He has also played music in Springfield for over 15 years in a number of local and regional bands including Hindrance, Poor Man’s Vision, Music For An Image, and The Horizon is After Us, Formant, As Of Now, Golden Giant and more.

Scott worked with Chris DeRosier on TheFourFour.com for 2 years covering all things music in and around Springfield, MO. In addition to a local music radio show that ran for 1 1/2 years on a local rock station, they also ran 2 local music festivals (FourFourFest) in 2008 and 2009 – adding a 16 band compilation CD to coincide with FourFourFest 2009.

Scott handles all of the design for TAGsgf from graphics to promotional items as well as IT and event coordination.