Tour of KCTV5

Today is our last day in Kansas City. The cool thing about coming to Kansas City for me (Mrs. Holladay) is that I used to live and work here. I was a producer at the local CBS affiliate - KCTV5. Fortunately, I still have friends that are working there and was able to schedule a tour. It is nice for the students to see what a working news station is like - especially after a tough competition. The Michigan Audio Team (and Mrs. Holladay's former students) from St. Clair TEC also got a chance to come with us for the tour. Above you can see Jeff auditioning for a spot on the KCTV5 News team.

Ian, Jeff & Josh learning about the newsroom at KCTV5.Jeff & Ian on the set of KCTV 5 news beore the noon show listening to our guide - Andrew.

Ian & Jeff taking turns at using the chroma key for a weather cast.

Evidence of a young Mrs. Holladay (and her audio extraordinar Streeter) - working as a morning show producer in 2001.

Students got to see the news from inside the control room during the noon newscast.

We also got to be in the studio during the newscast.

After the show we got our picture taken with the anchor.
Ian, Jeff, Josh, Chris Pisano (Morning/Noon Anchorman) Miss Frederick,
Kira and Mrs. Holladay

Of course after the tour of the television station - we went on a short driving tour of all my favorite spots and we had to stop at my favorite ice cream shop of all times - Murray's Cookies & Ice Cream in the Westport neighborhood. This was my second trip in two days!

The Competition

Well it's day four here in Kansas City. We have had a very HOT and exciting week here. Yesterday was a slow day for most people (except the video team - their competition started yesterday.) Ian & Jeff arrived early at the convention center and headed then headed to the Kansas City Zoo - that is were they collected their footage for their one minute commercial.
Today they spent the day editing it. At the end of the day they had a competed commercial. Tomorrow we go to a debriefing before heading for a tour of a local television station.

Evan, who is competing in Computer Networking was also busy - he was given homework at his meeting on Tuesday - so he was busy preparing for his contest and finishing his assignment. The picture above is the actual contest on Thursday. below is the judges having fun during a break - I think I see a smile underneath his serious facade.

But today was the big competition day - 1,000's of competitors filled Bartle Hall (the Kansas City Convention Center.) From Automotive to Culinary Arts to TV Production to Welding. There was a contest for everyone.

Ashleigh spent her day in the commercial baking contest.

She baked everything from breads to cakes to pies. It smelled so delicious - however as a spectator you became very, very hungry.

Here's some of Ashleigh's finished product.

Wes competed in Marine Technology - I missed his competition (he was actually eating lunch with the other competitors - when I caught up with him)Evan, Logan & Ryan spent the day presented their invention - a wheelchair mount for hunting - so that disabled people could still enjoy the sport.

Lapeer also had a contestant in Electronics Technology.

Zach is hard at work on his project.

Cody is working on his sheet metal project.

Cody is the only competitor from Lapeer returning to Nationals - he competed last year in the same competition.

Now is the point where we wait for the results. We won't know how the students did until tomorrow night - however in the meantime the kids can have some fun - most of them are headed to World's of Fun (an amusement park) for the evening. I am hoping that there will be time for ice cream before they go.

I'm very proud to be an advisor at Lapeer - the students are such an awesome representation of our communities.