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WYMT Don Franklin Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

Hazard-based WYMT runs this one alone. The Don Franklin Athlete of the Week pulls nominees from Bell, Floyd, Johnson, Knott, Letcher, Perry, and Pike County schools, year-round, across every KHSAA sport season rather than one.

Run by: WYMT Mountain News (Gray Television) Cadence: weekly Vote cap: Not specified by the organiser beyond the weekly ballot window, follow the current rules posted on the live page.
WYMT Don Franklin Athlete of the Week — fans voting online in the Kentucky fan-vote poll

Disclosure: buyvotescontest.com is a vote-promotion service. This is independent, informational coverage of a public contest run by a third party; we are not affiliated with the organizer. Where our own services are relevant they are clearly labeled, and the contest's official rules always take precedence.

How WYMT stacks up against Kentucky's other TV athlete polls

Kentucky runs more than one of these, part of the wider set of Kentucky fan-vote programs tracked statewide. Lexington and Louisville stations have their own athlete-recognition segments, and out west, WPSD Local 6 in Paducah runs a separately branded "Gridiron Glory Performance of the Week" for the Jackson Purchase region. None of them touch the mountain counties. WYMT (Gray Television, Hazard) fills that gap alone, Perry, Bell, Floyd, Johnson, Knott, Letcher, and Pike counties have exactly one dedicated television athlete-of-the-week vote, and this is it.
Kentucky TV athlete-of-the-week programs, by region
ProgramStationRegion coveredSeason scope
Don Franklin Athlete of the WeekWYMT (Hazard)Appalachian / eastern KY mountain countiesYear-round, multi-sport
Gridiron Glory Performance of the WeekWPSD Local 6 (Paducah)Jackson Purchase / western KYFootball season
That isolation cuts both ways. A Floyd County or Perry County nominee isn't fighting for attention against Lexington's or Louisville's larger media markets, but the flip side is a smaller total audience than a station covering a metro area. Football-specific standouts get their own separate lane on the statewide Kentucky High School Football Player of the Week ballot, and season-long recognitions can later surface on Kentucky High School Player of the Year. WYMT's own ballot stays regional and runs every week of the year.

The nominee pool spans seven counties and three sports so far

Prestonsburg, Johnson Central, Bell County, Hazard, Perry County Central, and Clay County have all had confirmed nominees between August 2025 and April 2026. Football carried Bell County's entry. Hazard's came from basketball. Clay County's nominee was a softball player. Three different sports, six different school communities, one ballot.
Confirmed nominee communities, Aug 2025–Apr 2026
County / school communitySport
Prestonsburg (Floyd County)Confirmed in nominee window
Johnson Central (Johnson County)Confirmed in nominee window
Bell CountyFootball
Hazard (Perry County)Basketball
Perry County CentralConfirmed in nominee window
Clay CountySoftball
A Clay County softball nominee sitting on the same ballot as a Bell County football nominee is the whole mechanic in miniature. Nothing here is weighted by enrollment or by which sport draws bigger Friday-night crowds. It's one county's turnout against another's, week after week, and the statewide Kentucky High School Athlete of the Week vote runs the same way at a bigger scale, for readers tracking both.

There's no offseason, and that's the actual mechanic

A football-only poll has a season and then a long quiet stretch. This one doesn't. Football rolls into basketball, basketball into softball and spring sports, and the ballot keeps publishing on wymt.com/sports/athlete-of-the-week/ every week WYMT's sports desk has something to nominate. The confirmed window already runs August through April without a gap. That means the old advice about "peak week" mobilization doesn't apply cleanly here. There's no championship stretch to build toward. So the practical version is simpler: check the posted date before voting, because older entries can sit visible on the page after their week has closed, and be ready to move whenever your county's athlete gets picked, not just during football season. The general steps for how to get votes for an online contest still apply week to week, since the ballot format doesn't change with the sport.

Why county turnout, not market size, decides close weeks

WYMT's viewers live in towns, not a metro. That reshapes how a campaign actually works here compared with a station covering Lexington or Louisville. The school itself, the county's youth feeder leagues, and family who never left the mountain region for Fort Wayne or Columbus jobs are the people who see a nominee's link first and fastest. Rules haven't changed: buying votes online and fan-poll vote support both apply the same way to a WYMT ballot as to any other fan vote, and real, verifiable votes matter more on a small regional ballot where a few hundred votes can decide a week. The organizer hasn't published a per-vote cap, only the weekly window itself, so the honest limiting factor isn't the rules. It's how many people in Floyd or Clay County actually see the link before Friday.

How to vote in WYMT Don Franklin Athlete of the Week

  1. 1

    Find the current week's ballot at wymt.com/sports/athlete-of-the-week/

    The Don Franklin Athlete of the Week ballot is published on WYMT's dedicated sports page during the school sports calendar. Because the program runs year-round rather than during a single season, check the publication date before voting, the active ballot is the one posted for the current week, since older entries can remain visible on the page after their window closes.

  2. 2

    Review the nominated performances from the WYMT coverage area

    Each week's ballot draws from eastern Kentucky's mountain-region schools, communities such as Prestonsburg, Johnson Central, Bell County, Hazard, Perry County Central, and Clay County have all appeared as nominees. Reading the performance behind each nomination is what shapes how a supporter frames outreach to their own school or county network.

  3. 3

    Cast your vote and share it with your community

    Vote for the nominee in the poll on WYMT's page. Because the ballot is public and free to access, supporters can share the link with classmates, family, and county sports groups and ask them to vote for the same nominee before the week's window closes.

  4. 4

    Treat the full voting week as the campaign window, not just the close

    Because the program runs year-round and spans multiple sports, a nominee's home county community benefits from steady reminders across the full week rather than a single push right when the ballot is posted, the same pattern that drives turnout in other regional television athlete-of-the-week polls.

WYMT Don Franklin Athlete of the Week — frequently asked questions

8 answers covering legality, delivery, quality, pricing and platform specifics.

Legality & scope

Is there a cap on how often someone can vote?
WYMT hasn't published one beyond the weekly ballot window itself. No fixed per-day or per-account limit is posted. Rules can shift week to week, so check the live page at wymt.com/sports/athlete-of-the-week/ rather than assuming last week's terms still apply.

Process & delivery

Why does WYMT run this instead of KHSAA or a newspaper?
Because no other outlet covers the Appalachian mountain counties the way a Hazard-based station does. WYMT's sports desk, not KHSAA, picks the nominees each week from games it actually covers across Perry, Bell, Floyd, Johnson, Knott, Letcher, and Pike counties. Don Franklin Auto Group sponsors it, which is why the name carries the dealership's brand rather than WYMT's alone.
Does the ballot ever pause between football, basketball, and softball season?
No, and that's the point of it. Nominees confirmed between August 2025 and April 2026 cross all three sports, so a supporter can't assume there's an offseason lull the way a single-sport poll would have. Check the posted date on wymt.com/sports/athlete-of-the-week/ before voting; old entries can linger on the page after their week closes.

Platform specifics

What's different about WYMT versus WPSD's Performance of the Week?
Geography, mainly. They don't overlap. WYMT (Gray Television, Hazard) covers the Appalachian mountain counties; WPSD Local 6, based in Paducah, runs its own "Gridiron Glory Performance of the Week" for the Jackson Purchase region of western Kentucky. Separate organizers, separate schedules, separate footprints.
Does winning the WYMT vote affect KHSAA standing?
No. KHSAA handles official seeding, championships, and eligibility; WYMT's fan vote is a television station's own recognition and sits outside that system entirely. A nominee's placement here has zero bearing on playoff seeding.

Custom orders

How does a Clay County nominee compete against a Hazard nominee on the same ballot?
They're pulled from the same weekly pool regardless of county size. Confirmed nominees have come from Prestonsburg, Johnson Central, Bell County, Hazard, Perry County Central, and Clay County, different counties, same ballot, same week. A supporter's best read on how contested a given week is comes from checking which other counties are represented.
Who decides which athletes get nominated each week?
WYMT's own sports desk, drawn from games and events its reporters cover directly across the eastern Kentucky broadcast area. There's no submission form for the public; nominations reflect what the station's team saw on the field that week.
Why would a small county like Clay compete well here compared to a bigger market poll?
Because the ballot doesn't weight by school enrollment or county population, a Clay County softball nominee sits on equal footing with a Perry County Central nominee from a larger district. The mountain-county structure means turnout, not size, decides close weeks.

Sources

Last reviewed June 2026. Contest dates, rules and vote caps change each season — always confirm the current rules on the official contest page before you vote.

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