SIUC television show brings home five Emmys

It was another successful Emmy run for SIUC students earlier this month the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Mid-America Regional Chapter Emmy Awards in St. Louis.

The award-winning half hour alternative TV news magazine alt.news 26:46 garnered five Emmys at ceremonies on Saturday, Oct. 20. In all, alt.news 26:46 received 11 nominations.

"We are very proud of the achievements of the alt.news 26:46 group in being awarded Emmy's at the NATAS competition in St. Louis this past weekend," interim Mass Communication and Media Arts Dean Gary P. Kolb said.

"This continues a long tradition of award-winning media including films, photographs, videos, and audio pieces produced by students in our college and demonstrates the quality of the instruction and facilities that they are experiencing here in MCMA," Kolb said.

Alt.news 26:46 won in the magazine program category for episode No. 803, which aired last year. That program's co-executive producers were Andrew D. Kastler, a senior in radio-television, from Waterloo, Iowa, and Kyle S. Tekiela, a junior in cinema and photography, from Bartlett.

"It's as much of a satisfying win for me it has to be for everyone else who worked on the show," Kastler said of the news magazine's program success. Kastler also received recognition for garnering the prestigious Walter Cronkite Scholarship from National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Mid-America Chapter.

Other Emmy-winning recipients were:

• Sean Q. Brown, a junior in radio-television from Deerfield, for his segment, "Bright Idea," which competed in the education/schools category.
• Adam L. Slutsky, a junior in cinema and photography, from Deerfield, for "Shootout," in the writer-spot length (promo, PSA, commercial) category.
• Tekiela, for his segment, "All Circuits are Busy: The Story of Coreh Dameron," in the human interest-program story/feature category.
• Tekiela, and former student, Jordan Gzesh, for the segment, "Bed Bugs Attack!" in the editor-program/program feature category.

"This is quite an impressive achievement for our students to go head-to-head with professionals," said Jan Thompson, an associate professor in SIUC's radio-television program. "Most importantly, these are mostly all undergraduate students."

Additional Emmy nominations went to:

• Brown for "Ninja New York," in the Art/Entertainment category.
• Slutsky, for "Shootout," in the news program-single spot, director-post production, and photographer/spot length (promo, PSA, commercial) categories.
• Tekiela, Gzesh, and Joseph M. Potter, a senior in cinema and photography from Lexington, Ky., for "Bed Bugs Attack!" in the science/entertainment category.
• Cory Byers, a former graduate student, for "Ancient Legacies: Intellectual Adventures in Greece," in the service program category. This is a non-alt.news 26:46-related work.
• Brown, Tekiela, Slutsky, Timothy P. Wilkerson, a junior in radio-television from Crystal Lake; Peter J. Casey, a sophomore in radio-television from Winnebago, and Megan L. Harris and Roger L. Mohn II, both seniors in radio-television from Peoria, for "alt.news 26:46," in the graphic arts-graphics-program category.

- Pete Rosenbery