My Favorite Things, 2018
Looking back at the year 2018, here are a few of my favorite moments, epiphanies, or just fun comments about my job as a broadcast journalism….make that Broadcast Journalism teacher and adviser. Feel free to leave some of yours in the “comments” if you want.
*LOVE love love love producing our “Bay 11” podcast. Who knew in the twilight of my career, I could learn so much about a new way of storytelling? Our crew is a small group of four that keeps me on my toes, and I try to reciprocate. Podcasts are fun, the format is wide open, and we are learning as we go. Bay 11 has also found an audience…or should I say, an audience has found Bay 11. One of our most memorable episodes came right after the Parkland tragedy. It is called, “Wildfire,” and it was produced and uploaded in just four days. Check it out when you get a chance. “Bay 11” is on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and the htvbuzz.com website.
*Back stories always interest me. Those little nuggets about what happened with the crew on a shoot. I had a team of two at the ice rink shooting a story about our local college hockey team. They were having such a great time at their first hockey game that the reporter texted her mom to share the excitement. Mom told me the other day that they loaded up the rest of the family had headed to the rink to join the fun and had a great time. The girls did a nice job. Here’s the story they filed: http://htvbuzz.com/ice-bears/
*After seven years away, our HTV gang went to the STN Convention in Nashville last March and we had a blast. The kids got to compete and rub elbows with about 3,000 student broadcasters and video producers. We will be back in 2019 for STN in Seattle. Bring on the flying fish.
The Cardinals missed the post-season but might have made the moves necessary to remedy that in 2019. I caught several games in Busch Stadium last season, and a couple on the road.
*Speaking of travel, two of my life-long buddies and I hit the road for a four-day trip to see our St. Louis Cardinals play the Pirates in Pittsburg. We also stopped over in Louisville and checked out the Louisville Slugger Museum. That was in late May and it got the summer off to a great start. Fun thing: we drove back non-stop, overnight, from Pittsburg to Springfield, just because.
*The ASB Workshop for broadcast and video teachers I run was all over the map last summer. We did workshops in Springfield, MO, our home base, but also in Cuyahoga Falls, OH and Sacramento, CA. We love the “road shows” and expect two more in 2019, as well as the one here at our home base in the land of the Mudhouse and “throwed rolls.” If those are foreign terms to you, then you best come to the workshop and find out more. Registration is open now.
*I became a grandfather for the second time in September. It has enriched my life beyond words to have Vivian, and now Elliott, visiting our home regularly. Dealing with teenagers is one thing, but a 2 /12 year old, and a newborn? The best!
So please have a great 2019. Do something out of your comfort zone, that thing you have been thinking about for a long time…you might fail, you might succeed, but if you do not try it, you will never know.