Looking Up to a Westminster Alum

Now that I'm a senior broadcast major I feel as though I have some large shoes to fill. The previous senior broadcast students were all very dedicated to the major and worked really hard. My fellow seniors and I have been trying to step up and take on this leadership role and maybe even become mentors to some of the underclassmen. I know when I was an underclassman I definitely looked up to a lot of the seniors.

Although there are several Westminster alumi who have had an impact on my college career, there is one person who I look up to more than others. Chris Norris (aka Chucko), who graduated last spring, has always impressed me with his broadcast skills. Whether it was anchoring, reporting, filming, or announcing, Chris always knew what he was doing and was good at it. However, I think one thing that Chris and I both have in common is we both really enjoy editing.

I remember when I was a sophomore I was in video production class with Mr. Weaver and he had us make individual mini-movies as one of our video projects. This was probably one of my favorite college courses because it wasn't strictly focused on news and it let me be really creative with my projects. For my individual mini-movie I filmed a really cheesy "scary" movie, starring my fellow capstoner, Amanda Conway. I remember when I went into the edit bay to capture my video I wasn't real sure of how to do it. Luckily, Chris was there working on a project and he was very willing to help me out. As I sat there and let my extremely "cheesy" video capture I was thinking that Chris probably thought I was crazy, but to my surprise he watched some of the video while it was capturing and said, "wow, you can do a lot of cool stuff with this when you edit."

Not only is Chris extremely talented at editing, but he's also very versatile in other aspects of broadcasting. He was always involved with the County Line whether it was reporting, anchoring, or producing. He was involved in sports as well. He did packages for Titan Town sports and announced the Men's basketball games. Chris was also invovled with the radio station by doing news and DJ shifts throughout his college career.

I really look up to Chris and admire him. I believe that seeing him work so hard has really pushed me to work harder. Now that I'm a senior, I feel as though I have to take on the responsibility of stepping up and being a role model to the underclassmen. Hopefully someday someone will look up to me as I do to Chris.