Westwood’s News Channel – Once a Westwood H.S. Undertaking

Ed. Note: “Westwood’s News Channel,” a group on Facebook, can now be found by typing the group name in the Facebook search engine. You can be part of the conversation by joining the group and see pictures, chat with former student anchors and watch some of the original newscasts that aired in ’05 and ’06 (coming soon in November ’09). This group is a tribute to all of the former students who took part in this once high school undertaking.

(Sloan, Iowa) – In the fall of ’05, a news organization called: Channel 3 Action News (C3AN), began as a “new student undertaking” at Westwood High School in Sloan – serving as the eyes and ears for student television viewers who wanted to learn more about the recent happenings and activities in their school and community. Channel 3 Action News, which retired in '06, was also known as: Westwood’s News Channel - a 15-minute local news broadcast featuring news, weather, and sports. The Channel 3 Action News – This Morning broadcast was seen by junior and senior high school students during a homeroom period in the late-morning at about 10:00 a.m. on Fridays and Mondays.
Students: Carrie Roche, Jake Flammang, Tyler Yockey, and Tony Ullrich participated in the show’s regular broadcast seen weekly. Carrie Roche and Jake Flammang served as the pilot co-anchors for the formerly "new" activity Westwood H.S.
Tyler Yockey, student in the class of '07, served as the fill-in news reporter/anchor for two years and brought humor and excitement to the Channel 3 news desk. Outside of having a face on Westwood TV news, Tyler was known by students in all grade levels for his witty, energetic behavior. He was crowned Mr. Westwood in '06 and was nominated for the homecoming royalty the following year. When Tyler made his appearance on C3AN, most students could not resist watching him. He always was featured in the “bloopers” segment at the end of each episode.
Tony Ullrich (class of '06) was known as the weather director and production manager for the morning program. He delivered the morning weather conditions using green wall “chromakey” technology, which allowed the weather graphics to virtually appear in place of the green background behind him. Tony was able to walk in front of the forecast maps and present the area’s only sky camera. The Channel 3 Action News program was recorded in a custom-designed television studio he designed in his parent’s basement.
The local CBS affiliate, KMEG 14, donated high quality graphic animation design for the Westwood TV channel’s news and weather segment opens. “Now from studio A…your Channel 3 Action News team,” the voice would say over the news graphics before each segment’s entry.
Students were enthused when they saw the professionally-designed graphics and stellar news set design. Teachers supervising in homerooms also liked seeing the new undertaking. The news station received cards and e-mails from faculty members and students who enjoyed watching the program.
As it became more and more popular, Channel 3 Action News added a segment called “The Sketch of the Week” after a plethora of student artwork was sent one- after-the-other to the station. Some students talked about being thrilled to see their drawings and sketches make the weekly program.
Monthly promotions were also a hit during the program’s existence. Before Halloween and Christmas, students could answer weekly trivia questions and have the chance to win a large pizza from B & R’s Pizza Post, one of the show’s sponsors.
And when the program approached its end each day, a final shot of the anchors was seen and the student anchors used to say together, “Stay Classy Westwood” while they winked an eye. The idea of a shout-out to the news viewers at the end of the show came from the 2004 DreamWorks film: Anchorman.

"Where's my Tony?"

Here's a short film I ran into on the internet that's called, "Tony." So I said to myself, "This I gotta see." The movie is quite interesting because you have to watch all of it in order to figure out who "the" Tony is. See for yourself.

LINK:

http://preview.channels.permissiontv.com/C1043322/staging/test.html?DLID=1089713

Wild Missouri Weather

As you may know, I currently reside in the great state of Missouri, and yes, I know some call it Missour-ah -- my head starts to spin when I hear people say it.

Ah, never mind that. Here's what I really want to talk with you about today. In Missouri, we have some wild weather. And sometimes, I kind of like it. You'll see why in moment.

So my birthday just passed this month, and I couldn't believe the temperature rose to 70 degrees on the Friday after my birthday. It was incredible. I'm used to living in Iowa weather conditions with, let's say, fifteen inches of snow on the ground and sub-zero temperatures during the week of my birthday. No surprise here. The Missouri warm weather day in the first part of February was like a summer get-a-way, but only I didn't have to go anywhere, it came to me. When does this ever happen?

A 70 degree day happening here doesn't guarantee that it will occur once every week in the Show-Me-State. The weather in Missouri, I found, can easily turn on a dime. Iowa weather is somewhat similar, but Missouri is still much much different. The weekend following the beautiful Friday, the temp. dropped to 20 degrees. Huh? Yep, a whole 50 degrees cooler in 24 hours (so much for global warming).

Many times this winter, the temperature hovered around the 20 degree mark in the morning on some days, and then later in the afternoon, the temperature rose to the point where a jacket wasn't needed.

So what's this crazy weather all about? People here say, "That's Missouri for you. We get a little bit of everything." I'd say that's a good answer.

Last week, again, 70 degree weather happened. I really couldn't complain because it was so beautiful and Iowa weather typically stays 20 degrees cooler when this happens. I guess, I start complaining when the next day it's cold again. In fact, the following morning, not only was it cooler, a thunderstorm happened to roll in, and for a good while poured pea-sized hail on us. I know it's unfriendly to our cars and homes, but thankfully, there was no reported damage from the tiny hail stones. Wheeoo. That was a close one.

In the wintertime, Missouri also has occasional snow from time-to-time, but it only 'sticks around' for a few days (sometimes less) and then melts.