Buzz check from Dan Pearson, please

Dan Pearson at KWQC TV in September of 2006.

There are only few people like Dan Pearson.

Now that I think about it, I don’t know many others that come close to DP.

Dann-o is the now former KWQC sports anchor. The creator of the Highlight Zone has hung up his “Big Game” shoes and started a new chapter in his life.

For 29 years, Dan has called television sports his career. Now, he’ll move into a more involved role with Fellowship of Christian Athletes. (a great tribute here by John Marx of the Argus/Dispatch) (here’s a nice page on KWQC.com about his departure) (and a note from Bill Wundrum of the QC Times)

Many of you know Dan as the Friday and Saturday night sports anchor/reporter/photographer on KWQC-TV 6. He’s the man responsible for the Emmy-award winning Highlight Zone. There are few high school football and basketball shows like it.

To Dan, every game was a big game. Even if the teams were 2-6 and 1-7, that game meant something to those kids, parents and community. We know through the book/movie/TV show “Friday Night Lights” how big high school football can be for the above mentioned items. For him, Friday night’s were big and he had the staff to make them that way.

Sure, he spent a little bit of the company’s overtime budget on paying photographers to drive to two or games in far-flung locales to cover the Pretzels, greyhounds and Tigers. But he was trying to get the highlights edited and fed back, many times 25 seconds before they aired. The photogs were the glue of the Zone. The St. Ambrose or Augustana students were learning the craft the best way possible, by scorching hot deadlines.

The Zone Intern was responsible for the Wacky (I’ll get to that in a bit), logging the big plays as they happened complete with time code and cut-a-way options and then writing the script that would be fed back to the Grand pu-bah Zone Intern Brian Stocking. Stockpile would take the scripts, put the plays into the computer if time and then get that to the set for not just Dan to read, but Gary, Sharon and even Terry.

This was just another Friday night for Dan. Teaching college, sometimes high school students, the ropes of TV news and sports at a fast and in a fun environment.

Dan would create a theme for the Zone each week, write about 6-9 intros to fit inside the theme, usually about one for each intern. That crew would go into the stands, find some willing volunteers and record their wacky. This gave the intern some face time and a chance for the crew to mix with the locals. Those interns would move on to permanent jobs at TV6 or somewhere else, but would always have that foundation.

Pearson embraced the intern, taught them and stayed in contact with many of them.

If you stay in TV long enough, you will know everyone. Especially if you work in the market you grew up in.

Dan and his 56 brothers were Geneseo guys. Dan lived there himself, often launching his day from his Henry County home well before his shift should start and pick up a cross country meet or volleyball tourney before 11 AM. A 12-hour day was a light day for Mr. Pearson. His drive made competitors cuss because they had to do the same or they’d be left behind.

Paul Yeager and Dan Pearson going over a script. You can see the weekend anchor wardrobe is in full effect, ties and shorts.

I got to sit next to Dan for 6 years on Saturday nights. It was always fun and you always had to pay attention. You never knew who would pop up on-screen or what phrase would come out of his mouth. I could count on the Wartburg football score in the fall and the Cardinals highlights in baseball season.

“Dan’s in next with sporrrrrrrrrttttttttttsssssssssss,” was my favorite part of the week.

He’s professional, uplifting, inspiring and most of all, humble.

Somehow how he maintained an excellent family, raising two wonderful girls. I think a lot of the credit goes to Gina, but Dan did everything he could to see as much as he could of his family.

Dan did what I think local television should do, he put as many local kids on the news as possible. There’s local stories, then there’s every local team. Dan covered them all.

I know many consultants don’t like all that high school stuff. Fine. Give ‘em more Hawkeyes, Cyclones or Illini is the the usual marching orders now. He could do that, but also give coverage to HS bowling, wrestling and track and not just lip service. He did stories on all the teams, all the time.

Kris Oetzmann, Paul Yeager and Dan Pearson on the old KWQC TV set.

For that Quad Cities, I’m sorry. I hope you get another anchor like him. His disciples are out there, Kory Kuffler and Matt Randazzo being two of them at WQAD. Kuff spent a lot of time with Dan and now is trying to replicate that. The sports office atmosphere was the place the cool kids would hang out and share one whopper of a story on top of another.

So, when you google, “Where is Dan Pearson?” or “What happened to Dan Pearson?” You can answer it this way: The Bradley graduate who’s been in the TV biz since 1987 is ready to lead young men and women in their journey of faith and sports. Sounds like a winning combination.

Best of luck, boys.

Here’s a link to his final goodbye package on air that is now on KWQC.com.

Caption This: Late Night Baseball (And a chicken)

What's your caption for this photo?

This week was filled with baseball for me.

The Iowa Cubs returned home for their longest home stand of the season with 13 on the schedule. The first 5 are against the Memphis Redbirds, the Triple A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. These are the games I can wear Cardinal gear into Principal Park.

Wednesday night a double-header was scheduled to begin at 505p. There was rain for most of the day, but light enough to not wash out the game. The game did start with an hour plus delay until 615p. Then the game went into extra innings (the 8 because the PCL plays 2, 7-inning games in doubleheaders).

So, the second game didn’t begin until 920p.

Throw in the fact it was a damp, cool, mid-week game, the crowd was thin.

Then the first game ended and more than half the crowd departed.

Four of us from our section were at the game. We made our way from the protected overhang to our normal seats. Plenty of good seats were still available. If I had to guess, there were no more than 140 people in the stands at the start of the second game. Some of the brave souls had liquid encouragement and were not afraid to let comments fly.

We all could hear their comments which made for almost more entertainment than the game itself.

Our crew was lively and started our own in-house caption contest. Then we opened it up to cyberspace.

Here’s what you all came up with.

Kristine W.: “The quarterly meeting of the Bob Vander Plaats Fan Club”"

Luke Baldwin: “‎”Free Umbrella Night” Proves Unsuccessful In Luring Fans To the Ballpark”

Kristin Roberts: “Ganett’s remaining workforce @ the Register…”

Kristin Roberts: “‎@ Austin…Sorry for the typo, but they fired the proofreaders. “

Julia Jones: “Rapture- June 22nd, 2011″

Brian Stocking: “A good attendance night for the Florida Marlins (last in MLB attendance).”

William S E. Coleman: “I was among the weather wimps.”

Brian Stocking: “A vivid recreation of the crowd at the end of a blowout NFL preseason game.”

Paul Yeager: “Come as your favorite empty seat costume contest a smashing success.”

Scott Harves: “The Pujols effect.”

Bob Palmer: “Boy…people like to stay after the game, right?”

Tony Lutz: “Someone is sitting in my seat without permission.”

Beth Haag: “Where is Ryno?”

LuAnn Weber: “Free Beer?????????????????”

drewmurphy00, Drew Murphy: “The iowa chops have returned as a baseball team.”

Trundlebedtales, Sarah Uthoff: “The few, the loyal, the brightly dressed.”

RHS76, Romelle Slaughter II: “The average crowd at an Oakland A’s game. Until the Yankees come to town.”

and “Apparently, Bernie Madoff Bobblehead Night didn’t go so well for the Mets.”

Any new entries?

The Famous San Diego Chicken works the crowd.

Earlier in the week, the Famous San Diego Chicken made another appearance at Principal Park. He did some of his classic bits to entertain the crowd. He works the field, umpires, players and the dugouts.

Some of the antics may seem tired, but he’s been doing baseball rounds since the 1970s. You’d be tired, too.

I enjoy this baseball throwback to the 80s when I grew up watching the game and the antics of the mascots was the main cutaway on the sports highlights. It was pre-ESPN going mainstream.

The Chicken will sign every autograph (for free) until the crowd is gone.

But really, he’s working the crowd. The Chicken loves the fans. He offers trinkets for sale, but he will sign everything for free after the game.

According to his website, I know the chicken having a website seems incredible, he once signed autographs until 220a in 90 degree Texas heat.

He was doing his bit with the fans in Des Moines as well. He had the long line and was making the kids laugh.

I know I did.

More problems on the Mighty Mo

Downtown Omaha, NE from the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge. Taken June 15, 2011.

I’m back from the trip to the Missouri River. We started in South Sioux City, NE, then to Sioux City, IA on Tuesday. A quick overview is found here.

Our crew made it to Council Bluffs Tuesday night. Our drive was eery along I-29 as the closer we got to Council Bluffs, the less traffic there was on the road. The interstate was shut down at Missouri Valley.

Looking east to Council Bluffs, Iowa. The white tarp is along a levee protecting the city. Photo taken June 15, 2011.

We did start at the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge between Omaha, NE and Council Bluffs, IA. This is a good place to see the wide the Missouri and not be in danger. You can see flooding along the Omaha side where a few back-ups of water are occurring in the parking lot of the new Ameritrade Park, home of the College World Series.

Crews rush to complete a secondary levee protecting Hamburg, Iowa. West and south of here, a levee broke Monday. Water has filled thousands of acres already. June 15, 2011.

We headed south on I-29 and got off the road at Nebraska City/Sidney exit. The 4-lane road into Nebraska City was reduced to a single lane in a couple of places as the water was on the road.

The businesses just off the interstate all had protective levees around them. That was the scene in many places south of the CoBlo/Omaha metro, lots of large machine-made levees. In Missouri Valley it was sandbags along the business district.

We made it to this lookout point in Hamburg. We could see the temporary work being done on the levee to help save the town. The major industries of town could be wiped out if this levee doesn’t hold.

Iowa National Guard commander arriving to view operations and flood patrol's base of operations. June 15, 2011.

The Iowa National Guard is patrolling the levees up and down the River. The Iowa National Guard Major General Tim Orr arrived in Hamburg Wednesday afternoon. He was flying the entire river to see what had changed in the week.

The Blue Moon is still open. The owner told us she’s willing to anyone her story and the community of Hamburg’s story. To say she was upset at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is an understatement.

One final note, this trip was almost 3 years to the day that Cedar River crested at Cedar Rapids. John Torpy and I were on that shoot as well. I wonder which river we’ll be on in 3 years from now.
We are working on a story for this week’s Market To Market program. Check your local listings.

Missouri River Mess

View of Sioux City, IA and South Sioux City, NE

There’s a big mess along the Missouri River.

We are on a Market To Market shoot this week to see the damage.

Check the @markettomarket twitter feed for updates.

The shot above is from a lookout in Sioux City.

More updates this weekend on the MToM program.

I did get to see former KCCI reporter Ryan Luby on KETV. Also a story from KIMT alum Brian Mastre on WOWT.

And a bonus was seeing former WQAD anchor Miranda Kahn in a car commercial.

The Fonz Swings a Bat

Alfonso Soriano at the bat.

One of the benefits of going to Triple A baseball games is to see future major leaguers. Sometimes, you get to see current major leaguers sent down to rehab before they come off the disabled list.

This week, 3 big leaguers were at Principal Park. Jeff Baker, Reed Johnson and then Alfonso Soriano all donned the Iowa Cub blue.

I saw one Chicago Cub fan say he was glad to have Soriano in Des Moines, he didn’t have to go all the way to Chicago to boo him.

Soriano battled third, going 0-3 with a ground out, infield pop up and a fly ball about 8 feet from the LF wall. He did get a nice greeting from the crowd. (If you want to hear more about the game, listen to AM 1650 in Cedar Falls on Monday morning. I heard the station had a correspondent at the game today. I wonder how sports director Jesse Gavin pulled that off?)

After Fonzi left in the fifth, he missed all the fun. A couple no-calls, grand slams and a plunked Algona, IA native, this occurred.

Here’s the link if the embedded video doesn’t play.

Supper is another hot dog? Sign me up!

The boys didn’t see the fight, but if they had, Noah would have given this face to the fight.

A quick note on Noah, we are coming up on the last game of his first tee ball season. The Angels will close out the season this weekend. It has been fun to see he and his teammates grow and learn more about the game.

We took Noah and Levi to the Iowa Cubs game Saturday night. Noah ate supper at the ballpark. He enjoyed yet another hot dog.

I have no idea where he learned that face. Must have been something he learned at school.

98 in 11 (My Aunt Eve)

Aunt Eve.

1913 was not a year historians talk about often as only a few “major” news events occurred.

• Woodrow Wilson succeeded William Howard Taft as the 28th President of the United States.
• President Wilson would later trigger the explosion of the Gamboa Dike, ending construction on the Panama Canal.
• The modern zipper is invented.

Morgan Evea with her Great, Great Aunt Eve in 2007, Eve's 95th birthday.

But it was on this date, June 8, in 1913, Evea Krueger was born.

Later, she would marry Lawrence and move to Fairbank. She already was a beautician. She would continue that career until she was well into her 90s. Most of that time, she was a widow as Lawrence died more than 40 years ago.

Eve Stainbrook took care of many women of northeast Iowa inside her beauty salon just off Main Street in Fairbank. We recently had to sell the shop, move her from the farm and into assisted care. (That sentence is full of family stories to be told by mother and Aunt Lynda who did the lion’s share of work in clearing Eve’s house for sale).

Eve with some of her nieces and nephews following Edith's funeral. September 7, 2010.

Her remaining sister, Edith, died in August of 2010. Eve’s other siblings, Thomas Krueger, Delmar Krueger and Dorothy Krueger (Yeager) Lehmann already have passed. Dorthy is my father’s mother for those of you trying to make the connection. Eve is my Great Aunt.

Many of her friends and even customers have passed, too.

She’s a woman with more spark than a 4th of July display. Even the Energizer Bunny asks her to slow down. Eve is as independent as they come. If she had her way, she would still be cutting hair at 98. She was still trying to cut hair at 95 for Pete’s sake. She cared for our family and we care about her.

Kent taking his Aunt Eve to the truck for the ride south.

I grew up listening to my father engage in heavy conversation with two people. Dew Peters and Eve Stainbrook. My dad would never yell at his Aunt (ok, maybe that’s sugar-coated a bit).

My parents have done a lot of care for her over the years and for that, we are grateful. Eve is now in the East Town Care Center in Independence. She’s had a rough few months but recently has gained back some of that spark.

Eve, Happy Birthday. I hope we get to write “99 in 12″ next year. I’m already working on the calendar to give you at Christmas.

A bad day fishing beats almost everything else

Noah watches his line in the water.

The saying goes a bad day fishing/golf/baseball beats a good day at work.

Noah agrees with that statement.

A big thanks to Ankeny Park and Rec, Ankeny Optimist Club, Central Iowa Anglers and Wal-Mart for sponsoring the Fishing Derby at Hawkeye Park.

Last year Noah and I went fishing with our friend Dan Wardell as he helped organize an IPTV event. This year, we went corporate and enjoyed our time on the bank of the pond. Noah was excited to fish with his Toy Story pole.

Our first cast ended with an empty hook and no fish.

Before we could put our line back in the water, Noah had his name called as he had won a door prize. He has a new pole (that’s taller than him) and a tackle box filled with lures and bobbers. Pretty cool.

Noah's big catch.

The second cast went much better and we brought in a little bluegill.

We then caught our biggest fish of the day. It wasn’t really big enough to keep, but he swallowed the hook. So, someone enjoyed a tasty treat. Organizers set up a cleaning and cooking station. Some of the fish they were cleaning were the size of a credit card.

We have to warm up a bit before going fishing Grandpa Fish. You have to be ready when you step up to the big leagues of angling.

We can do this journalism thing better

I am thankful for Levi being under the weather on Thursday. This allowed me to stay home with him to make sure he was feeling better.

A bonus was being able to watch The Daily Show’s noon rerun. The guest was Bill Moyers.

Mr. Moyers has been on both sides of the microphone, first as a press secretary, then reporter and host. He most recently retired from hosting a show on PBS. He gets heat for allegedly having liberal bias, but his interviewing style and approach is to be learned from by all up-and-coming journalists. For that matter, current ones could learn a lot from him.

For the record, Jon Stewart can also be a good teacher. The Daily Show host just uses the public record for comedy. He just plays a clip from 10 years ago and then the clip from last night. He’s just doing what journalism should be doing and not just using screaming heads to get his point across. (you can watch IPTV’s Conversation on Civility: An Iowa Perspective, our discussion on getting along better with one another.)

Here’s part one of two of the Stewart/Moyers interview.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Moyers Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:388040
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

If that link doesn’t work, try this one.

There’s a second part to the interview.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Moyers Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:388041
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

If the embedded clip doesn’t work here’s the link to part two of the interview.

Moyers is out pimping a book, so that was the reason for this appearance on Comedy Central.

Back to our civility discussion. You can watch our show here. There’s a great discussion with Chuck Larson, Jr and Joe Shannahan here. We talked about the media and how we can do a better job in helping our country.

Our studio panel was Barry Griswell of the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines, Scott Raecker of Character Counts of Iowa, Connie Ryan Terrell of Interfaith Alliance of Iowa and Kathy Obradovich of the Des Moines Register. We did a 51 minute discussion at IPTV. You can watch it here.