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Wabash Valley College’s Radio/TV department’s TV station, News Channel 15, has been nominated by the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System for the national award “Best Community College TV Station.” In addition, student Tristan Thomas has been individually nominated in the category “Best Video Sports Report.”
These two nominations, made by the premiere college broadcasting awards company, are the first of their kinds for the Radio/TV program and its students. “This is big! Seeing our station nominated for a national award,” said Director of Broadcasting Kyle Peach. “This is the first time in our program’s history that we’ve been nominated for such an award. I’m honored to see the amount of hours that the students and staff of our program put in to our TV channel is paying off.”
WVC sophomore and Radio/TV broadcasting major Tristan Thomas is equally excited about his individual nomination. “I'm definitely proud of this nomination. I'm just trying to build up my resume as much as I can, and winning this award would help with that, but even just the nomination is some confirmation that the hard work I've put in is paying off.”
Thomas has helped with newscasts for most of his time at WVC. Starting out behind the scenes, he didn't start anchoring sports until early last year during the spring semester.
“I'd just like to say that I'm so thankful and blessed for learning about this college’s program, and being able to learn from Scott Allen and Kyle Peach. Many successful people in sports broadcasting have told me that getting experience on the air or in front of the camera is really important to how good you can be in this field. These kinds of opportunities are here for the taking at WVC, as Kyle and Scott really understand this reality as broadcasters themselves. I feel my strong work ethic paired with my experience here at WVC will ultimately help me succeed in making a career as a sports reporter. … The amount of broadcasting opportunities I've been presented with here at WVC have been crucial to my development in this field.”
Peach stated that Thomas’ hard work and strong work ethic certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed. “Tristan is, hands down, one of the best sports broadcasting students I’ve ever had. Not only is he good at what he does, but he also works hard it. He does his homework— deciding what stories to include in his sportscasts. He does ample preparation for the games he broadcast and generally speaking has a great delivery. …
Certainly, anyone who watches Tristan’s work can’t help but be impressed. I think it’s impressive the amount of work he does. He helps host and produce our 30-minute local sports show, “Sports Extra,” each week, and he works more games than any other student we have in the program. He also anchors our sportscasts each night on our newscast. I think doing so much allows him to have a better handle than most students would on what viewers expect, how to select which stories to cover and how to properly deliver those stories. … He’s got a very bright future in the industry and I’m excited to see where he goes. ”
Award winners will be named at the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System’s annual conference on Saturday, March 7, in New York City.
Wabash Valley College operates News Channel 15 in cooperation with New Wave Communications, the local cable TV system. The station broadcasts a variety of student-produced programs including local news broadcasts, local sporting events, community happenings and Sunday worship services from several area churches. The station serves the southern Illinois region including Edwards, Hamilton, Jasper, Lawrence, Richland, Wabash, Wayne and White counties.
News Channel 15 is available to viewers on New Wave’s cable TV system, and, as of 2019, the broadcasts can also be found on the free Cablecast Screenweave channel on Roku and Apple-TV. The locally produced newscasts and shows are uploaded to the TV station’s Facebook page @my15news and all of the broadcasts can be found at my15news.com.
Students in the Radio/TV and Digital Media program take part in the production of the station’s programming, including operation of equipment. Students who are not Radio/TV majors may still work for the station with the approval of department staff and enrollment in an Applied Broadcasting course. For more information, contact Kyle Peach at extension 3575 or peachk@iecc.edu.
