This Monday, about 20 students from KHS Intro and Advanced videography took a field trip down to Oklahoma City and toured the KOCO-5 (Channel 5) television station.

Videography teacher Mr. Kaya spearheaded the event, which was to be an all-day trip. The bus left at 12:10 PM and went to OKC. On our way to KOCO’s station, the bus made a minor detour to the State Capitol building. Why? According to Mr. Kaya, “We’re gonna go just to say we went.” After the self-tour of the Capitol, we boarded the bus again and after breaking at McDonalds, arrived at the TV station.

The main attractions began as Executive Assistant Victoria Merikel, our tour guide, introduced us to Executive Producer Patrick Spencer and Chief Photojournalist Kyle Hamm. A question and answer session then ensued and Kyle showed us the massive cameras that their on-the-spot camera men use. Since it seemed everybody was a little scared to pick it up, he proceeded to explain that they weighed about 40 or 50 pounds. They also explained how both they and their camera men must be ready to leave to go anywhere at any time to get a story.

Moving along, our tour took us to the sound and production booths. Buttons, buttons, and more buttons! They were everywhere. We talked with the crew members in the dark production booth room. They explained to us that the room was basically the place where all the yelling takes place. The Executive Producer and a few other control-freaks sit in the back and bark out orders to the people running all of the switches and to the news anchors. After they leave the room though, all of the insults that may have been flung around are forgotten.
We then passed through the server rooms and a little before 5 o’clock made our way down to the live-production studio in time to watch the evening news at 5. Before the newscast started, everybody had fun shooting photos of themselves and their friends in the news anchor’s chairs. Then, we sat in the corner of the large studio, and watched behind the scenes as the live broadcast unfolded.

“30…15….10….5,” a female announcer called out the time until the news was on-air. The three cameras covering the news anchors were robotic and could be remotely controlled to move anywhere in the studio. In fact, all of the cameras used during the newscast were robotic. This means that, aside from us KHS students, there were only four people in the room: the two anchors (Paul Folger and Anita Blanton), the announcer, and Chief Meteorologist Rick Mitchel. In between their parts, the news anchors would tell the group what exactly was happening and answered our questions.

During his weather forecast, Rick mentioned how the 8:00 Tuesday morning temperature in Kingfisher would be 64 degrees. “The Yellow Jackets will love that,” he continued, “…you know, Kingfisher is just a wonderful community. I’m not saying that because we have a group of Kingfisher High School Students right here, but I truly mean it. Great people in Kingfisher.”
Soon after that positive note the group left the news station and ate at InterUrban in OKC and arrived back in K-Town around 8:30.