Southern-Fried Gaming Expo is humbled to present a recurring yearly award honoring our friend and colleague, the late Marc Mandeltort. Marc was the founder of Marco Specialties, Inc., one of the earliest supporters of SFGE whose life’s work revolved around preserving pinball and making it accessible to everyone. If you have ever had the opportunity to speak with Marc you were lucky enough to hear his passion about the industry, the supportive community, and the game itself. Always one to give above and beyond, his passion was always felt every year as a proud sponsor of the Southern-Fried Gaming Expo.
More about Mark from the Company Website:
For Marc, pinball machines were kinetic art that needed to be preserved for future generations to discover and enjoy. To achieve this mission, Marc dedicated his life to building a sustainable company that ultimately enabled dozens of people to directly build pinball careers, inspired thousands more to fix games, and saved countless games from the landfill.
In the early days of Marco, he would often spend hours swapping pinball stories with customers. Every game was a world of nested stories ranging from the design and gameplay itself to the politics and popular culture of its time. Most of all, Marc loved nothing more than finally locating an obscure part that brought a pinball machine back to life and sharing it with the community at large.
The Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award has been created to recognize an individual with a similar passion for gaming and who supports others in the gaming community. The winner of this award must have a passion for helping others and for sharing their gaming knowledge through words, actions, and social presence. We are seeking nominations for this individual. If you know someone who you feel meets this standard, please use the form below to submit them for consideration.
Previous Award Recipients:
2026 Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient: Brian Jones
Congratulations to 2026 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient – Brian Jones
2026 Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award-winner, Brian Jones holds his award next to SFGE Co-Founder, Preston Burt
2026 Award Proclamation Text:
Each year, the Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award gives us an opportunity to honor the memory of our dear friend Marc while recognizing someone whose passion for gaming is matched by an extraordinary willingness to support, encourage, and give back to the community.
The award recognizes an individual who supports others in the gaming community and shares their knowledge through words, actions, and presence. This year’s recipient embodies that spirit in a way that is difficult to overstate.
For decades, he has been a collector, restorer, historian, builder, exhibitor, organizer, mentor, and—perhaps most importantly—a friend. His knowledge of arcade games and their history is extensive, but what truly sets him apart is his willingness to share that knowledge with anyone.
One nomination recalled meeting him nearly 20 years ago at an arcade auction. Standing beside a rare 1978 Gremlin Frogs, the future recipient explained its historical significance, the unusual hardware inside it, and its ingenious use of a mirror to display the frog images.
The story perfectly captures the person we are honoring today: knowledgeable, generous, and always eager to teach.
As one nominator put it, he is “knowledgeable, willing to share information with anyone, and extremely generous.”
That generosity has taken countless forms over the years.
He has brought rare and historically significant games to conventions throughout the Southeast—not simply one or two machines, but trailers full of games that he believes people will genuinely enjoy seeing and playing. He has served as an organizer, exhibitor, panelist, and attendee, and, as one nomination observed, “every single one of those shows has been better because he was somehow involved.”
His contributions extend far beyond collecting games. During his time with Free Play Florida, he helped bring the community together and went far beyond what was expected to make the event memorable. He designed and constructed a gigantic Tron Recognizer and even built a massive, 16-foot-tall Donkey Kong arcade machine—projects requiring enormous amounts of time and effort simply to give others something amazing to experience.
He has also played an important role in preserving arcade history. When a rare prototype arcade game was destroyed in a devastating fire, he rebuilt it from scratch to preserve the game and its history. Through his work online, he produced original and reproduction artwork and restoration pieces that helped collectors restore the games they love. When he stepped away from that work, he made sure his library of print files remained available to other collectors rather than allowing that resource to disappear.
His generosity has often gone even further. For the opening of the movie Man Vs. Snake, he painstakingly built a Nibbler cabinet from scratch so people could play the game at the event. Billy Mitchell and Walter Day played the machine and signed it. Afterwards, when a friend expressed interest in owning a Nibbler, he offered the machine for little more than the cost of its materials.
That same spirit continues in his work with Mold-A-Matic machines. These enormous, difficult-to-transport pieces of amusement history require considerable time, money, and effort to maintain. Yet he continues to restore them, bring them to events, keep them running, and even manufacture new molds so that people can experience a piece of their childhood—and future generations can discover something new.
He does these things not for recognition, but because he understands that preserving these machines means preserving the memories and history surrounding them.
One nomination described him as “a quiet, humble man who shies away from attention, but deserves more of it.” Another said that he “always goes above and beyond to support his friends and build up a community.” And perhaps most tellingly, one nominator observed: “He always puts others first.”
That is the common thread running through every story about this year’s recipient. Whether he is sharing obscure arcade history with a newcomer, bringing rare games to a convention, helping someone restore a cabinet, creating artwork, rebuilding a prototype, or simply giving his time and expertise to a friend, his instinct is always the same: How can I help?
He has spent decades helping preserve the games we love, but his greatest contribution may be the people he has helped bring together around them. He has helped build communities. He has helped keep history alive. He has helped collectors, operators, restorers, exhibitors, and newcomers. And he has done it all with remarkable humility and without expecting anything in return.
The Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award is intended to honor the unsung heroes of our hobby—the people whose efforts make it possible for the rest of us to enjoy, understand, and share this remarkable hobby.
Our recipient is exactly that kind of person. His knowledge is vast. His generosity is legendary. His commitment to preserving arcade history is unwavering. And his greatest gift is his willingness to use all of those things for the benefit of others.
For his decades of service to the arcade community, for bringing people together through Free Play Florida and countless other occasions, for preserving rare and important pieces of gaming history, for sharing his knowledge freely, and for a lifetime of putting the enjoyment of others ahead of his own recognition.
It is our honor and privilege to present the 2026 Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award to…Brian Jones
2025 Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient (Posthumously): John Marsh
Congratulations to 2025 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient – John Marsh
Kerri Marsh & Katelyn Marsh with John’s Spaceballs Pinball
2025 Award Proclamation Text:
In Memory of John Marsh
Normally at SFGE, we only recognize one person whose passion, positivity, and presence have helped shape our community for the better. A single person who embodies the same spirit of joy, generosity, and love for gaming that our friend Marc Mandeltort brought to everything he touched. This year, however, we were inundated with nominations and accolades for a lynchpin in the gaming community who deserves the spotlight of recognition as well.
John Marsh was a builder. He built things with his hands, with his ideas, and with his heart. He built one of the most beloved homebrew games in our community—but more importantly, he built friendships. He built trust. He built people up.
If you ever mentioned in passing that you might be thinking about building a pinball machine, John was already your biggest fan. He was the kind of person who wouldn’t just root for your success—he’d help make sure you got there. John didn’t dwell on problems. He tackled them. He believed energy was better spent building, fixing, and helping. And when you needed encouragement, he gave it in the kindest, most personalized way. Never generic. Never performative. He saw you. He showed up for you. He held you accountable—not to scold, but because he believed in what you were doing and wanted you to see it through.
He had that rare ability to challenge you with honesty and still leave you feeling supported. He reminded you that you could do hard things, and he’d do them right alongside you.
He gave tirelessly: his time, his ideas, his parts, his voice in forums and Facebook groups, and always his respect. If there was a conversation about pinball somewhere online, chances are John had chimed in with something useful, encouraging, or just plain kind. He was deeply proud of his family and was never far from them. His children and loved ones knew a version of John that we in the community only got glimpses of. And even from those glimpses, it was obvious how much love he carried and gave.
When John’s homebrew project was first shared in a DragonCon Facebook group, one comment summed it up perfectly:
“Someone is designing and building their very own Spaceballs-themed pinball machine. In other news, my life’s work has been a complete waste.”
That blend of admiration, disbelief, and humor? That’s the kind of awe John inspired.
Sadly, John passed away in April, and his absence has been felt deeply by the people he supported, challenged, and inspired. But his legacy lives on.
His homebrew masterpiece, Spaceballs: The Pinball Machine, proudly sits on our show floor this year. Be sure you make a point to play his game, admire his work, and remember a great man. That game may live in our exhibit hall today, but John will live in our hearts forever.
It is with deep appreciation and affection that we posthumously present a special Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award to John Marsh—for all he gave to the homebrew community, the SFGE family, and everyone lucky enough to have known him.
2025 Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient: Rebecca Bockman
Congratulations to 2025 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient – Rebecca Bockman
SFGE Co-Founder Shannon DeWitt posing with 2024 Distinguished Gamer Award Winner, Rebecca Bockman
2025 Award Proclamation Text:
Each year, the Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award gives us the opportunity to pause and recognize someone who embodies the spirit of our dearly missed friend Marc—a person whose passion for gaming is matched only by their desire to uplift others and create lasting community.
The award’s criteria are clear: the honoree must have a passion for helping others and for sharing their gaming knowledge through words, actions, and presence. And yet, no checklist could ever fully capture what this year’s honoree means to those around them.
In early 2023, someone showed up to their first pinball meetup feeling unsure, exhausted from parenting, and searching for something that felt like their own. That night changed everything. A new passion was sparked. A new community embraced them. And at the heart of that experience—offering encouragement, inclusion, and quiet leadership—was our honoree.
That story isn’t unique. Over and over, we heard similar reflections:
- Someone hesitant to compete until a voice reminded them: “You belong here.”
- Someone convinced they weren’t good enough—until they found themselves in the finals of a state championship, thanks to steady support and honest coaching.
- Someone who barely knew pinball existed… now running tournaments of their own because of the guidance and belief they were shown.
These stories aren’t just about learning the rules of a game. They’re about learning to show up with confidence. About finding community in a world that too often feels isolating. About discovering that yes, there is room for one more.
And this isn’t just about pinball—it’s about presence. The world of competitive pinball, like so many corners of gaming, has long been dominated by men. But thanks to this year’s honoree, that’s changing.
She’s been a voice reminding others: “You deserve to be here too.” She’s helped create not just a place to play, but a place to grow, to lead, and to belong.
Thanks to her tireless efforts, the Atlanta women’s pinball scene has grown from scattered to statewide. What was once a tournament with too few players now hosts a state championship filled with competitive fire, mutual respect, and standing-room-only support. It’s a movement that didn’t happen by accident—it happened because she made it her mission to lift others up.
She is a tournament director, a motivator, a connector, and a friend. She is the reason so many people discovered pinball… and the reason they stayed.
And she’s done all of this—built this community, become a passionate mentor, and strengthened the foundation of women’s pinball in Georgia—while also facing one of life’s toughest battles: a personal fight with cancer. Even through treatment and uncertainty, her spirit never dimmed. If anything, it burned brighter, reminding us that joy, strength, and community matter most when life is at its hardest.
Her passion is powerful. Her impact is immeasurable. And because of her, the game—and the community—is better for us all.
So today, with gratitude, admiration, and heartfelt applause, we proudly present the 2025 Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award to: Rebecca Bockman
2024 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient - Imoto Harney
Congratulations to 2024 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient – Imoto Harney
SFGE Co-Founder Patrick Wall posing with 2024 Distinguished Gamer Award Winner, Imoto Harney
Award induction speech by SFGE co-founder Patrick Wall:
A few years ago we established an annual award as a way to honor the memory of someone we lost who was so influential in the gaming community and as a way to recognize the efforts of people within the larger community who have an outsized positive impact, an unmatched enthusiasm, and big heart, just like our friend Marc.
On our website we lay out the criteria for the type of people we’re looking to recognize. It reads: The Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award has been created to recognize an individual with a similar passion for gaming and who supports others in the gaming community. The winner of this award must have a passion for helping others and for sharing their gaming knowledge through words, actions, and social presence.
You would be hard-pressed to find someone more passionate about pins and vids than this year’s nominee. This person started their own YouTube channel to share their love of gaming with countless others online. An infectious personality filled with excitement and joy to share a love with others, it’s impossible not to be impressed with the person in front of you…on the screen or in person.
Our nominee was one of the earliest supporters of SFGE and works hard to celebrate gaming and bring attention to those who deserve it, and while she often shines the spotlight on others, now it’s time to turn the spotlight on her.
The accolades are numerous. She
- Has dozens of credits for production and camera work in IMDB for documentaries and film work
- Turned her passion into a full time job in marketing for one of the largest distributors and retailers in the industry
- Produces events across the country to ensure other passionate gamers have the best experience possible
- Hosts award shows to celebrate others’ successes
- Produces and hosts tech chats and repair videos to keep games alive and collectors entertained
- An advocate for–and a founder of–a con to celebrate the homebrew community
- Gives of her own time to help a charity place games in hospitals for sick children and their families
- Worked with her family to open a Captain Crazy’s Paradise a public arcade in North Gulf Shores Alabama
The list goes on and on. One of the many nominations she received for this award reads in part as follows:
“She personifies everything that’s best about the gaming community. She’s perpetually friendly, warm and upbeat. Her videography skills are second to none, and she brings excitement to every segment she does. From repair videos to her own channel, She makes us feel good about pins and vids. She is unfailingly friendly and seems to always bring out the best of anyone she’s interviewing.”
Her partner Jimmy adds: “All I can add is that her uncontrollable passion for pinball and the community in whole is so contagious that we talk about it all the time. The drive she has to encourage people to visit an arcade or show off a homebrew just to feel what happiness pinball can bring to each and everyone is what fuels her passion. She talks so highly about so many in the community and the overwhelming support y’all give her family during the building of their arcade made them feel so loved. She eats, sleeps, breathes pinball, trust me I see it everyday and it brings me so much joy to support her dreams and watch her bring a smile to so many.“
With her selfless enthusiasm, her amazing charisma, her unfailing friendship, and her gigantic heart, it is our honor to present this year’s Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award to Imoto Harney.
2023 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient - Al Warner
Congratulations to 2023 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient – Al Warner
SFGE Co-Founder Preston Burt posing with 2023 Distinguished Gamer Award Winner, Al Warner
2023 Award Proclamation Text:
The Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award has been created to honor the legacy of our friend and beloved founder of Marco Specialties, one of the earliest supporters of both SFGE and the pinball community as a whole to recognize an individual with a similar passion for gaming and who supports others in the gaming community. There are halls of fame and there are awards for game designers, but we wanted to establish an award to celebrate those unsung heroes of the hobby. The winner of this award must have a passion for helping others and for sharing their gaming knowledge through words and actions across a local community and beyond.
Those are tough requirements to meet. We received many nominations for this years’ award, but one name stood out from the rest and was nominated time and again. Despite what you see around you today, there was a time when pinballs and arcade games were not as celebrated as they are here at SFGE. For a time there, there was only one pinball manufacturer left, barely eking out an existence, the typical mall arcade was absolutely dead, and it looked like those fun machines and memories would be a thing of the past. For a time, it fell on those who loved and cherished these games to document, collect, restore, share their knowledge and passion with others to keep the torch burning
This individual has been a staple of the Atlanta pinball community since the early 2000’s and has dedicated much of that time to helping the pinball community grow as a whole. Between cultivating a killer collection, creating his own website to share and document his knowledge, establishing what could be considered the first-ever pinball podcast, and educating others on repair and maintenance, you’d think he’d hardly have time to spare. But he did.
This individual further spent his efforts on establishing a still-running email listserv to connect local and regional collectors together virtually, building the necessary network to reignite what had been dying embers of a hobby. Growth of the community may have been slow, but still he persevered.
Before YouTube allowed anyone with a phone to share content, our nominee went to great lengths to film, edit, and package DVDs with some of the only pinball content available at the time. Opening his home to strangers was not uncommon for our nominee, and he was often one of the first people in the hobby to welcome someone new in the community by opening his stellar basement arcade.
In fact, by volunteering as one of the original hosts and organizers of the Atlanta Pinball League, you could say that this person’s actions and generosity had a direct hand in what would lead to the creation of the Southern-Fried Gaming Expo.
Some might say that you’d have to be superhuman to do all of these things. Though he may not technically be a superhero, this person certainly has a super POWER….Friendship.
While doing all of these things, what he was really doing was making friends, building others up–without seeking anything in return.
Those who nominate this person stated:
“He has never said no to any request for help and has never hesitated to offer his time and knowledge to anyone who needs it. He has willingly offered to help move machines, given time and spare materials, and even was instrumental in completing the daunting task of understanding the Ikea instructions for a new game. A tremendous friend, I have rarely met anyone as welcoming and encouraging as he and I am truly honored to count him as a part of our family.”
Personally, he’s been gracious with his time, and always willing to help. He’s literally the kind of friend you can call on to help you move a piano on short notice. Who does that? This man.
Even at SFGE, I don’t know if he takes time for himself to enjoy the event because he’s so busy making sure everyone else is able to.
My favorite nomination includes this observation:
“He has always been, and continues to be a great resource and an asset to our community and while I can think of several other worthy recipients I don’t know that they would even be in the conversation if Al had not been Al”
I think it’s fair to say that without this kind, humble, and generous friend, the gaming landscape we know and love here in Atlanta today would simply not exist without him.
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2023 Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient…
Mister Al Warner.
2023 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient - David Kitch
Congratulations to 2023 Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award Recipient – David Kitch
SFGE Co-Founder Shannon DeWitt posing with 2022 Distinguished Gamer Award Winner, David Kitch
2022 Award Proclamation Text:
Southern-Fried Gaming Expo is humbled to begin an annual tradition in honoring our friend and colleague, the late Marc Mandeltort. Marc was the founder of Marco Specialties, Inc., one of the earliest supporters of SFGE whose life’s work revolved around preserving pinball and making it accessible to everyone.
If you have ever had the opportunity to speak with Marc you were lucky enough to hear his passion about the industry, the supportive community, and the game itself. Always one to give above and beyond, his passion was always felt every year as a proud sponsor of the Southern-Fried Gaming Expo.
For Marc, pinball machines were kinetic art that needed to be preserved for future generations to discover and enjoy. To achieve this mission, Marc dedicated his life to building a sustainable company that ultimately enabled dozens of people to directly build pinball careers, inspired thousands more to fix games, and saved countless games from the landfill.
In the early days of Marco, he would often spend hours swapping pinball stories with customers. Every game was a world of nested stories ranging from the design and gameplay itself to the politics and popular culture of its time. Most of all, Marc loved nothing more than finally locating an obscure part that brought a pinball machine back to life and sharing it with the community at large.
SFGE has decided to create the The Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award to recognize an individual with a similar passion for gaming and who supports others in the gaming community. The winner of this award must have a passion for helping others and for sharing their gaming knowledge through words, actions, and social presence.
After looking through many nominations, one individual stood out. This person was noted as an outstanding electrician and repair tech who tirelessly devoted their time to the hobby and the community around it. This individual has spent many long hours ensuring that machines in pinball tournaments are well maintained and running smoothly. They are noted to always have encouraging words and the embodiment of a Good Sportsman. They gave their own time to help others in the community, in one instance drove many hours to pick up a game for a fellow gamer who was elderly and needed assistance, even taking time to unload and set up the machine in their home.
In early 2019, an IFPA State Representative was looking for a place to hold the State Pinball Championship. The venue originally selected fell through. This individual volunteered their own home as the tournament site. They spent weeks cleaning and repairing their own personal collection to meet the standards for the Championship. They even went so far as to purchase a couple of games so the players would have a proper selection. The family then opened their home many nights for “Open Practice” allowing anyone in the top 24 rankings to prepare. They provided food and drinks and were amazing hosts.
This individual sometimes goes by the title DK2 because his father (DK1) and son (DK3) are also pinball players with the exact same name. His gracious and welcoming wife Sari also plays and is a huge supporter of the pinball community. SFGE is proud to present the 2022 The Marc Mandeltort Distinguished Gamer Award to an individual who is generous, gracious, and at the top of his field, Mr. David Kitch.