Nice work, Gus

The Wartburg College Communication Arts Department added a national Emmy to the walls of history tonight.

Scott is the shorter one in the photo not named Emmy.

ESPN producer Scott Harves ’97 won his first national sports Emmy to his resume Monday night. The ceremony has been a lot like the daytime Emmy’s for Susan Lucci. The “All My Children” star was always nominated, but only won once. Scott had been nominated double-digit times before. This is his first statuette.

The Mother Ship’s Outside the Lines took home most of the hardware.

ESPN won four Sports Emmys for its excellence in journalism. The network’s acclaimed investigative series Outside the Lines won three Sports Emmys across three categories – Long Feature: The Man Behind the Red Bandana; Short Feature: Time Out of Mind; Editing:Joplin, City of Hope. Additionally, the prime-time news magazine show, E:60, was cited in theShort Feature category for “Together.” This is the 11^th consecutive year ESPN has received a Sports Emmy in at least one of the two categories for Features.

Scott was the producer on the Joplin, City of Hope. He spent time in Joplin after the football team after  the deadly tornadoes as they prepared to begin a new season in a changed town.

He was nominated in 4 categories Monday night at the New York City ceremony.

Nice picture with Scott Shaquille Rashaun O’Neal. Prior to this win, one of the biggest highlights he had at the ceremony was sitting next to Kelly Rippa’s husband.

Here is a trailer for Scott’s piece.

The Godfather departs

John Walters official WOI photo.

One of the good guys is departing local TV.

But don’t tear up yet for John Walters. Just because WOI’s sports director is leaving in June, he’ll still be doing the job he’s gained the most recent fame from as the voice of the Iowa State Cyclones football and men’s basketball.

The Godfather will work full-time for the ISU Athletics in a move he’s been hoping to land for quite some time.

Walters is a graduate of Drake University. He spent time at KCCI and has been sports director at WOI since 1996.

Here's a photo of Iowa State Football Radio network team taken the day ISU beat Nebraska in Lincoln. L to R - Eric Heft (color), Ben Bruns (sideline), some old man found sleeping in the press box, John Walters (pbp). "Wally" is holding up 9 fingers for the 9 points that were all it took to win. (Bob Foster photo and caption copy writer.)

Here’s a photo of John and the rest of the ISU Football Radio network crew. The picture was taken after the Cyclones beat Nebraska in Lincoln on October 24, 2009. That was the same day Iowa beat Michigan State in East Lansing on the Marvin McNutt slant route and Michael and Jen Graham were married….(Mike still doesn’t care about what happened in the Cyclone game.)

Sorry, back to the photo… my first play-by-play teacher Bob Foster, provided the picture. He’s the between Ben Bruns and John. Eric Heft is on the far left of the picture. The nine fingers represent the points ISU scored en route to 9-7 victory.

Some of John’s Cyclone calls were heard around the world. This video is from the great plays in the Oklahoma State Football game when the Cyclones shocked the world.

Another big game in the era of Paul Rhoades was this Cyclone win at Texas.

One of my favorite John Walters memories comes from his early days at Channel 5. He was anchoring and the tape wasn’t ready. So John had to stretch. A lot. He finally resorted to “We now go to the Dean Smith four-corner stall…” all while smiling on camera, waiting for the tape to play. I’m pretty sure the tape still hasn’t rolled….

Best to John as he leaves the grind of TV news for a life in academics, errr, athletics.

The WOI press release is below. The full story can be found here.

WEST DES MOINES, IA — ABC5 News announced today ABC5 Sports Director John Walters will be leaving ABC5 News in June to take a full-time position with the Iowa State University Athletics Department. John has served as Sports Director for ABC5 since June, 1996. In addition to his daily duties with the station, John also anchored a wide variety of sports series and specials, including an 11 year run with “Friday Night Blitz”. John, a 1984 graduate of Drake University, has been part of the local sports broadcasting landscape for nearly thirty years. First, as a sports reporter for KCCI-TV, under the mentorship of Pete Taylor, and then serving as Sports Director for the last 16 years for ABC5. John has been honored as “Iowa Sportscaster of the Year” three times since 2005. In 2001, John and the ABC5 News Sports team were recognized by the Iowa High School Athletic Association for their coverage of high school sports, including their half-hour high school football show “The Friday Night Blitz.” In 2003, John began his role as the radio play-by-play announcer of the Iowa State Cyclones. He also hosts the “Paul Rhoads Show” and the “Fred Hoiberg Show” on ABC5. John and his wife, Joni, have three daughters, Kate, Annie and Kelli. John is making this move with mixed emotions, “I am very excited about this new opportunity with Iowa State, but at the same time I will greatly miss all my colleagues whom I have enjoyed working with here at ABC5. I know the sports department is in great hands with Dave Zawilinski, there is no doubt in my mind he is ready for the challenge.

Iowa State University will announce details of John’s new position on Friday.

At ABC5, Dave Zawilinski will assume the responsibilities as ABC5 Sports Director after John’s departure in mid-June. Dave, a 2005 graduate of Drake University has been with ABC5 for ten years. In 2005, Dave joined ABC5 full-time as a Sports Reporter, and has served as Weekend Sports Anchor since 2010. Zawilinski says, “Over the last 10 years I have had the privilege and pleasure of working with one of the best sportscasters in the business – the things I have learned from John have prepared me for this opportunity. I have some pretty big shoes to fill, but I am looking forward to the challenge. I wish John nothing but the best in his endeavors at Iowa State.”

ABC5 News Director Scott Frederick says, “John Walters will be missed. To be sure, it will be difficult to replace someone of John’s caliber, but Dave Zawilinski is just the guy to do it.”

 Best to John. Maybe we’ll see him around the neighborhood more often.

What has happened? Part 2

Dan Wardell hosts Cameron McCoy in the IPTV Kids Clubhouse during Festival 2012.

Apparently, I left out a few things from the month of March in my last post.

There was the rushing of the bishop, the conversation with a son-of-a-bishop and the texts with the bishop’s assistant. We also drove past the site of the last Bishop’s in the QC where the legendary voice of Ed Lewis asked, “How do you say goodbye to chocolate pie?” on the last day of restaurant in Duck Creek Mall. Ed was interviewing customers on that last day at the place with the great dessert. And table lamps.

I love lamp.

Seriously, I liked the movie “Anchorman”, but what will they do in “Anchorman 2″ to make it funny? Murph and Andy on KXNO/WHO-HD are correct, how many comedy sequels are funny? How many of them turn into the Baby Ruth in the pool?

I did work the month of March at IPTV. That month is kind of a big deal for us. It is Festival. I don’t have direct responsibilities those days, but Market To Market keeps churning out the hits like oil, gas, commodities … squirrel!

The POET ethanol facility in Emmetsburg, Iowa.

This story was last week’s adventure from my boss, John Nichols.

Fellow producer Dave Miller and I took a road trip to Emmetsburg for a groundbreaking of a new ethanol facility in northwest Iowa. It was weird to see no snow that far north in mid-March.

I took Murder’s Row to Waverly for a meeting. Thanks to Jesse Gavin for the name.

We saw a touching tribute about former Wartburg All-American wrestler Aaron Wernimont as done by a Wartburg TV student.

I discovered Gotye. You can see him on Saturday Night Live later this month.

And this old commercial from Ameritrade.

I found that one night while on the treadmill. I’ve been reviewing all my VHS tapes to pare down the stacks of stuff I have everywhere.

That sounds like something I should have done in the month of March while being snowed in my house.

What has happened?

I have no excuses. I’m not going to claim an active lifestyle on my lack of blogging.

I guess I’ve cashed in on the nice string of weather. For one thing, days on end of 80 degrees in March have finally come to an end. And that’s only because we are now in April.

Thank goodness.

I was getting tired of always being outside, drawing on the sidewalk, playing baseball or soccer in the backyard, going to the park and not wearing a jacket.

Seriously, what has happened?

Well, to sum it up easily, life happened.

Amy returned from Europe earlier in the month.

We played outside.

I mowed my lawn 3 times in the month of March.

Amy and I bought bicycles and actually tried to use them. I guess exercise is important to good health, who knew? Amy does, but I’m still getting used to it.

We actually used vacation days with the boys in a trip to the QC. As you can see in the picture, we just sit in hotels playing on the iPad and DS.

It was on that trip that I learned a good friend from my Girl Scouts Night on Broadway, died. Brian Nelson (tribute story by another great friend David Burke) was such a great person and talent. It was awesome to stand next to him to get my part. No one can replace that voice in the show and it makes my decision to return last December all the more meaningful, as that was my last time talking to the copy editor of the QC Argus/Dispatch before he passed on March 17.

We saw old friends in new places and entertained along the way.

Then there were trips to get frozen yogurt.

I suppose Call Committee at church took a little time. We are looking for a new pastor for care and discipleship.

We hosted two members of the Ritterchor from Wartburg College. Our guys were communication arts majors. They weren’t even at the house 10 hours, but we still managed to bore them to tears with tales of Castle Singers and KWAR. The group was well received at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. We hope they remember us in Ankeny the next time they drive by.

I did get to meet the new director, Lee Nelson. He’s an incredible talent and Wartburg is lucky to have him.

And now this week, baseball begins. The Iowa Cubs will open the 2012 season to some of the coolest weather we’ve had in weeks. The boys are summer are getting the same luck as last year, great weather in Des Moines when the team was on the road, but when at home, bring the cold, rain and snow.

We did have some family health issues with Grandpa Bob Lehmann attempting to play Superman and ending up in the hospital. Mom and Dad survived a month together in Florida and Kris was able to return with them, hitting every 3rd McDonald’s along the way back to Iowa.

And maybe I play Words With Friends a little bit….

But being a dad is what I love to do. Spending time with the clowns is the best medicine for any day. Amy gets attention, too. You have to keep the boss happy.

Maybe next time we’ll get back to the business at hand, telling you who is pregnant on what TV station and maybe dig up some old hat pictures to keep you entertained.

Until next time, good knight.