well actually BRUCIE,....i feel as though i have come full circle now!
when i was 12 years old i was playing my guitar ans singing on a local radio station (and it was a big deal back then...1948)and radio fascinated me to the point that i wanted to be a part of broadcasting. i managed to hang around that station (WAIR AM and FM)and learn all i could about broadcasting,production,etc..then in 1953,i was a junior in high school,the first TV station went on the air here!i marched myself over to the building where it was located and went right in to see if i could get a job there...i remember going up the flight of stairs and this gentleman was coming down the stairs and stopped me to ask if he could help me!(unbeknownest to me,he was the tv program director)...anyway,i told him that i wanted to get a job in TV...then he asked me,"son,do you know anything about tv?"   i answered him honestly by sdaying,"no sir ,i dont!" to my amazement he replied,"well,we don't either,come on in!"...
so,that's how i got my job in tv!
i worked part time on the production crew after school and into the late hours each night,but i learned all i could!
i was also an amateur photographer and that was a plus for my knowledge in operatinmg a studio tv camera...
i worked at 2 or 3 stations over the next few yeara and wound up in Charlotte,N.C.,working at WSOC-TV on the production crew!
one day in 1965,the TV NEWS director asked me to come to work for him in the news dept! i knew very little about covering TV NEWS with a camera,but this guy liked me and my spunk,so i took the job and he sent me to Norman,Oklahoma,to the Universty there,where they had a yearly siminar for tv news photographers!
dang,i busted my but for 2 weeks and finished in top of the class!
so that's how i became a TV news Photographer...that was 1965...i retired in 1999,still a TV NEWS photographer with an EMMY AWARD along with various other awards for tv news stories i had done over the years! but my Emmy came to me in 1998,at the the University of Vanderbilt, in Nashville,Tennesssee,during the prestigeous SILVER CIRCLE AWARDS that are presented there each year to a very linited number of tv news people from all over the country!!!you have to be nominated for it and sometimes that process my go on for years before they accept the nomoinatin for you...mine was accepted the first year!
so,now i am back in radio(on the internet)but it's a way of keeping up with the new technology and believe me,it's totally different in our world now than 40/50 years ago!
my job here is Voluntary,but God Almighty in his infinite mercy has helped provide the way for me to do this and help me aquire the equipment at BARGAIN prices and I give HIM the credit and Thanks for it all! AND,i use this entire operation to HIS HONOR and Glory!!!it's really neat to have all this equipment and opportunity to continue to be a part of the broadcasting scene,today!!!
hey,i really never thought TV was where i'd end up...wnen i was first pickin' and grinn' on the radio as a boy of 12 years old,i was also SELLING NEWSPAPERS on the street corner in downtown Winston-Salem,N.C.,and that was bAck in the days when you yelled,"Paper!!!! Get Your Evening Paper!" it was neat too!and ther newspaper sold for FIVE cents,back then and i got TWO ans A HALF CENTS on every paper i sold!if i sold 100 papers,i made $2.50,that day...believe me,that wasa a lot of money for a 12 year old kid,then!
but as Paul Harvey would say,"And now you know,THE REST OF THE STORY!"