Each month, Arkansas PBS produces a short segment that runs on the air during program breaks and is shared online with staff talking about programming and events that will be coming up. Jamie Walters, a marketing and communications specialist with our Education Department, joined me to record the segment for April.
As one of the events is the annual “Quiz Bowl” competition among high school teams from around the state, I took that as an opportunity to wear a “Quiz Bowl” tee shirt from previous years rather than my normal work clothes. The event will be broadcast live on Saturday, April 26 and is always a blast to help produce. It’s an all-day marathon of rounds testing kids’ knowledge of a wide range of categories. It can be hectic having so many young people come through our building, where we must get teams in and out of the main studio quickly during breaks. But it’s always a lot of fun.
The competition is presented by the Arkansas Governor’s Quiz Bowl Association, which operates under the Arkansas Activities Association. This year is special because it’s the 40th anniversary for the event, which started while Gov. Bill Clinton was in office in 1985.
Another anniversary we discussed was 20 years of Arkansas IDEAS. A function of our Education Department, it provides free, online professional development for educators. More than 4.5 million professional development credit hours have been awarded over the last two decades to teachers, school support staff and administrators.
Director of Public Affairs at Arkansas PBS, 36-year broadcasting veteran, photographer, interested in radio, TV and railroad history, author and host of the book and podcast series Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas.
