The Audio/Visual Production program at Bradley Central High School had of a team of senior students place first in the Tennessee SkillsUSA State Conference.
The student teams from across the state met on Monday, April 10 at Chattanooga State in the TV Studio for an orientation meeting and then competed in the ‘Broadcast News Production’ contest on Tuesday, April 11, which also took place in the same studio.
The TN SkillsUSA Awards Ceremony took place at the UTC McKenzie Arena on Wednesday, April 12, which is when the students were notified of their placement.
In this contest, Cleveland High School placed second and Coffee County placed third. This is the second year in a row that the Bradley Central High School A/V Production Program has won gold in this competition for best in the state of Tennessee.
The contest, held for teams of four students from schools around the state, had each individual team working to create their own three-minute TV news cast. The Tennessee SkillsUSA Contest Judges, which are industry representatives, evaluate the news teams on 19 items with 1,000 total possible points being scored. The news teams are given more than a dozen written news stories that are of regional, state, national, and international interest. The stories contain current news in areas of politics, weather, sports, criminal activity, and general interest. The students re-write the new stories that they choose to present and complete a document that can be used in a TelePromter when the two news anchors are speaking in front of the cameras. The team’s technical director sits at a video workstation to switch between the studio cameras and speak through a communication headset to the floor director located behind the studio cameras. The news anchors rehearse the diction and rhythm of their spoken delivery, as well as watch for cues through a series of hand signals from the floor director instructing them as to what place they are in the timeline.
This format has been rehearsed by the gold medal winning Bradley Central students daily during the school year as they create a morning news cast for their student body and local community. The students continue to rehearse and provide local news at Bradley as they now prepare to represent the state of Tennessee at the National SkillsUSA Conference in Louisville, Ky. on June 19-23 this summer.
Patricia Diaz and Morgan Denney have been working together as news anchors this academic school year on Bradley’s VOX News and as film directors in the annual Bradley Film Festival held in November.
Ms. Diaz plans to attend Cleveland State next year as she continues her studies in A/V production. Mr. Denney plans to attend Chattanooga State next year as he plans to continue his pursuit in a degree in A/V production.
Abagail “Abby” Johnson, studio floor director, has been involved in the school broadcasting program for four years at various positions. She is the current band manager for ‘Quadrant D – BCHS Rockband’ which is in the final stages of ‘QD7’, their studio project. She also works as a commentator for Bradley streaming the school’s athletic events online at www.BCHS.tv covering the Bradley Central Bearettes softball games for the BEAR Network. Ms. Johnson plans to attend Chattanooga State next year to continue her studies in A/V production.
Kealey Collins has been the technical director for ‘VOX News’, the schools news program which is streamed daily at 9:30 a.m. online at VOXNews.net and throughout the school’s closed circuit cable system. Ms. Collins plans to attend Tennessee Wesleyan next year to continue her studies in the field of A/V production in the new communications studies program. Local TV station, WTNB, airs the daily news cast at 2 p.m., 5 p.m., and 11 p.m. on Charter Cable channel 5 and Comcast Cable channel 210.
The students are looking for local sponsors to help their financial burden of competing at Nationals. If you would like to support this news team by making a donation to Bradley Central High School Broadcasting, contact Gwen Shroyer by email at gshroyer@bradleyschools.org, or by phone at 423-933-6255.