Reporting on A Great Mother’s Day With My Mom

RICHMOND, Va.– Mother’s Day is supposed to be about honoring mothers.  But, even as I reflect on Mother’s Day 2013, I can’t help but say how memorable THIS ONE will be.

For many people, Mother’s Day is a Greeting Card day, a phone call of a holiday.  For the first time in more than a decade, I was able to be HOME to celebrate Mother’s Day WITH MY MOTHER, Sallie Daniels,  in PERSON.

The weather here in VIrginia’s Capital City was PERFECT– time for a photo of mom in our garden outside our Richmond home.

This is my mom next to hear 2013 garden where the lavender plants match her Mother’s Day outfit. The recent rainy Richmond weather has been a good thing for our garden.

WORSHIP WITH MOM

Today’s worship service gave me an opportunity to see so many mothers  and mother figures at my beloved First African Baptist Church who played a major role in my development as both a child and a young adult.

Courtesy:First African Baptist Church

Before a service of Holy Communion, my home pastor, Dr. Rodney Waller reminded us about “The Philosophy of a Mother’s Faith.”  He based his message on the first five verses of  the fifth chapter of First John.  Because our mother’s faith was instilled in us,  there are  THREE THINGS we as Christians know for sure:

1. If you love Christ, you are a child of God.
2. If you’re a child of God, you ought to love each other  (we’re not in this world alone)
3. If you’re a child of God, you ought to ACT like a child of God living out the commandments of God

While these points weren’t earth-shattering, they certainly were important to place in the context what I believe based on the foundation laid by my mother. No one can put it quite like Dr. Rodney Waller can.

One of my schoolmates from Thomas Jefferson High School, Lynette Archer Brownlee ministered a rendition of Tamela Mann’s “Take Me to the King” and that just topped off a beautiful Mother’s Day Service, a MEMORABLE Mother’s Day Service.

It’s been a few years since my younger brother and I were both here on Mother’s Day and able to sit next to our Aunt Zora Royster in church.

But, this Mother’s Day was not over yet.

GRILL OUT WITH MOM, AUNT, AND FAMILY

With a cool breeze blowing off the lake behind my cousin’s home,  the weather was perfect for grilling out and enjoying a Mother’s Day barbeque with mom and the rest of my family.

PHOTO OP with THE MOTHERS in MY FAMILY– Mom (Sallie Daniels), my cousin Ivette Royster and my aunt Zora Royster

As much as I love the folks back in Alabama,  there is NO PLACE LIKE HOME.

I can’t wait to come back later this summer for more rest and relaxation.

Happy Mother’s Day Mommy!

Scenes From Day 2 in Phoenix, Arizona

PHOENIX–  Before getting down to the nuts and bolts of entrepreneurial journalism, I had a great opportunity today to knock out two items on my  5-item  ”To Do” List  for my visit here.

There is still much to write about what I’ve seen and experienced at the Arizona State Capitol Museum and AZCentral.com/KPNX-TV  But for now,

Here a three visuals gathered along the way today:

It’s been about two years since KPNX-TV 12 News moved into the same building with its sister publication, The Arizona Republic on Van Buren Street. Today I not only visited the facility for the first time and talked with editors at both the newspaper and the television station, but also sat in on an afternoon news planning meeting involving the news producers for KPNX-TV. The unique nature of this operation makes it a must-see for those enthusiastic about convergence/multi-platform reporting.

I can now officially add Arizona to my list of State Capitols that I’ve visited. The original capitol building is now just a museum to the 100-year history of Arizona as a state and the decades prior to 1912 when it was a territory. The lessons learned about the 48th State are many.

OK– another sweatshirt to sport from a trip for which I was under-prepared. But this one allowed me to blend in with the “local crowd.” With the very chilly morning air, this sweatshirt came in handy and it wasn’t that expensive. Turns out my favorite color– blue, is one of the state colors for Arizona.

Day 1 of Phoenix Visit Defined by Cold Weather, Cotton Candy

PHOENIX–  Day 1 of the visit to Arizona’s capital city was definitely a day of  three words that start with a “C”-  Cold,  Cotton Candy.

A view of downtown Phoenix from 15 stories up. Despite the cold conditions on New Year’s Day, this breathtaking view was enough to forget the shivers for a minute.

I’ll save the description of the latter until the end of this first update from Phoenix where the Scripps-Howard Journalism Entrepreneurship Institute kicks off this afternoon at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The New Year’s Day cross-country flight ran on time and soon as I exited Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport, the cool air hit me.   I said “wow, this doesn’t feel like the warm, resort city that is often viewed as a desirable bowl game destination.”

Venturing Back to the Valley of the Sun

Today marks the first in a series of posts on a trip to the Southwestern United States, to one of the few areas of the country where they don’t observe Daylight-Saving Time.

I’m talking about Arizona, which sometimes has the same time as California in the summer and is one hour ahead of California this time of year.

I’ll be spending at least part of six days in this state, the longest ever, an exciting thing, especially for one whose hometown is Richmond, Va.

It will be my fourth trip to the region.

George’s 42nd Birthday Start to Finish

Stacy Jones and Wesley Britt helped me remember this night with a quick birthday photo seconds after I blew out the candles on my birthday bread pudding.

9:15 p.m.  UA Friends Throw Impromptu Birthday Party At Chuck’s Fish

What started as a salmon supper at Chuck’s Fish in downtown Tuscaloosa became a 42nd birthday party among UA friends tonight.

One of my good friends, Stacy Jones, set everything in motion as we arrived for the dinner.

We started with Lobster Claws and then I was pretty full on my seafood platter.

Then, it was time for dessert and after I ordered my white chocolate bread pudding (YES, I know I will pay for it when it’s time to weigh in next week), Dr. Jones decided to make it a birthday bread pudding.

I thought, ‘What is she up to?”

Minutes lady the waitress brings out the dessert all lit up with the candles and the entire restaurant broke out in a rendition of “Happy Birthday” right before I blew out the candles…two of them– as I’m forty-TWO today.

It was a great way to top off a great birthday.

The other folks in the UA party– two of our graduates Katie Boyd Britt, former Student Government Association President and Wesley Britt, who played for the Alabama Crimson Tide before going on to a career on the New England Patriots.

Wesley is in graduate school now at Bama and I believe Katie is in law school.   Katie and Wesley happened to be sitting at the table next to us.

Where would I be without my Crimson Tide family?   This was definitely a memorable birthday celebration. 

5:11 p.m.  Can’t Escape Working on One’s Birthday

Finally, I’ve finished reading and grading a set of writing assignments.  There is still more work to be done.  But, I consider this a major accomplishment of the day.

It’s been hard to work while thinking about an upcoming birthday supper that is planned for later this evening.

1:50 p.m. Update   My Panera Surprise:Carrot Cake Muffin

OK- Remember that 2.6-mile walk this morning?   Yeh, I remembered it too as the cashier at Panera Bread revealed my birthday “surprise” was a free pastry.

When it opened a couple of years ago in Tuscaloosa, Panera Bread was a welcome addition to our hangouts for quick meetings and “treat yourself” kind of snacks and foods.

The company is known for its artisan breads.  But, the bakery cafe always features the delectable desserts that you’re not supposed to have if you’re concerned about your weight.

Each year, on your birthday, Panera notifies you that with your MyPanera card, you bring it in for a surprise.

It’s a great customer loyalty program.

I didn’t claim my surprise last year.  So this year, I was definitely going to take advantage of it.

I was thinking it would be an entree or a salad.  That was going to be my lunch today.   Turns out I’m walking out of  with a carrot cake muffin with walnuts and a lowfat strawberry smoothie. 

Felt good about the “lowfat” part of the smoothie, but not so good about the muffin.   I just tried to lock up the nutrition information on these items.  Not available.

1:25 p.m. Update   Uh-Oh, You Mean I Need New Running Shoes?

One of my errands for this 42nd birthday was to replace insoles in my relatively new running shoes that I purchased last summer.

“New” for me means that I’ve had the shoes for less than a year.   My last pair of tennis shoes lasted (and I still wear on and off) at least four or five years.

Well, it turns out that today I learned even more about shoes.

If they’re going to support your weight in exercise, they really only last a few months.

Today I learned there are shoes with built-in stability controls and that I should have shoes JUST for exercise/working out.  Really?

The description  online for “Brooks Beast” says my new shes provide “the ultimate in motion control shoes available to runners.

They’re “designed explicitly with the severe over pronator or larger runner in mind.”

Guess I’m that “LARGER runner”   I was NOT expecting to spend my birthday gift money on shoes.  But, such is life.

8:06 a.m. Update       A Birthday Waffle for Old time  Sake

I debated about whether to blunt the impact of my walk by having my favorite breakfast.

I promised myself not to make this birthday about food.

But, then I said– the more important thing is the eat what I want and keep track of it.   You see here my Birthday Waffle..

For the first time in my nine years in Tuscaloosa, I went to Waffle House and had myself a waffle itself, which is only 314 calories.

Weight Watchers says that’s 13 PointsPlus.

The waffle was delicious, but not the same without my morning anchors– WTVR’s Angie Miles and Meteorologist Kevin Selle.

We used to go out for waffles after our morning shows back in the mid 90s during my days at Richmond’s WTVR NewsChannel 6 (now CBS 6).

On my last day at the WTVR in 1993,  the morning team brought in the waffles for a real memorable send-off to my new job in Cincinnati.

Had so much fun getting up and producing the morning news at Channel 6.

Today at 42, I remember that fondly.

7 a.m.           2.6 miles in 53 minutes- DONE!

Well the sunrise walk around the UA Quad is done.  We accomplished our goal today of adding a lap, but our time was about the same — roughly 13 minutes for a lap.

I felt better today than I did yesterday in that I was not sore in my lower back.  (The soreness is usually a sign that I haven’t been exercising or walking)

No soreness today.

Best of all, I started in the final minute of moonlight at 6:06 a.m. and I completed the morning after stretching with beautiful daylight over a very quiet University of Alabama campus.

This sunrise walk was memorable.   And, yes I did dress out in (hunter) green shirt and (hunter) green shorts today.

After all, it’s Saint Patrick’s Day.

5 a.m.   Rise and prepare for Catch-Up Walk #2

Short version: I was supposed to be doing cardio workouts throughout the spring break and I kind of slacked off.  So I’m making it up in the final three days before spring break ends.

Yesterday– we managed three laps around the University of Alabama quad in 39 minutes.  Our goal today is to add a lap and improve our time.

Why We Are Live Blogging

Web logs are great for conveying up-to-the-minute information.

One way to provide such information is to be aggressive in updating what we are doing.

The transparency IN the PROCESS is what makes the medium appealing.

So we’re being transparent about what happens on this special day for me.

Assuming no one cares about my 42nd birthday but me, I am making my special day public and practicing a journalistic reporting tool that has defined my work over the last year– blogging.

We’ll see how it goes.

Fearing the Fallout from Verdict in Virginia Tech Wrongful Death Lawsuit

BLACKSBURG, Va–  Spending three days here in the very building where hordes of media gathered nearly five years ago in the wake of the worst shooting on a college campus in U.S. history could not have happened at a better time.

This afternoon, a Montgomery County  jury unanimously awarded $4 million to Karen and Harry Pryde, and $4 million to Celeste and Grafton Peterson for the deaths of their daughters in Norris Hall on April 16, 2007.

The Inn at Virginia Tech is just a beautiful building. It was an ideal place for scores of news media to gather April 16, 2007 for news conferences. What Virginia Tech officials did not anticipate is that it would be the place where families of those students who were killed would also be housed.

The decision came just three days after the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium concluded here at the Inn at Virginia Tech, the place where 11 news conferences were held across the 8 days following the shooting.

Virginia Tech’s Larry Hincker Biggest Highlight of AEJMC Southeast Colloquium So Far

BLACKSBURG, Va.–   The first full day of the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium has come to an end and even though I have not been able to cull my photos and edit my video, there is at least time for a moment to reflect on some of things I learned.

First and foremost, Virginia Tech is an awesome campus!   Growing up three hours away from here in Richmond, I had this image of a place I now know as the New River Valley that was a big deserted campus in the middle of nowhere.

One of the first newspaper stories I published while in high school was a Richmond News Leader feature on a girl from my church who came here to Tech and hated it transferring to another college.   I saw this campus through her bad experience.  (The Richmond News Leader is no longer published, but the story in the YOUNG VIRGINIANS section of the paper is memorable.

As a child, I learned Virginia Tech’s real was Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.  I learned why my parents would call it V.P.I.

That was 25 or more years ago.   So much has changed,  not the least of which were the events of April 16, 2007, which is a day most Americans will never forget– the  day Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before taking his own life.

Tech’s PR Man Talks

Larry Hincker (Courtesy:Va.Tech)

Tonight, the man at the center of managing the hordes of media who took over this campus spoke about the incident to those of us attending the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium.

He told the story of the “insatiable demand for information that he couldn’t meet” as hundreds of satellite trucks, scores of news crews sought to cover this biggest incidence of violence on a U.S. college campus in the history of nation.

While there have been other campus shootings since the one here in 2007 at Northern Illinois and at University of Alabama at Huntsville,  this one represented a turning point.

This one has made Larry Hincker a much sought-after speaking around the world as a expert on campus notification systems and crisis management in the face of unbelievable tragedy.

This Week’s Court Case

Our AEJMC Southeast Colloquium just so happens to coincide with a wrongful death trial that is underway here in Montgomery County Circuit court.

In the case brought by the families of two students killed five years ago next month,  the plaintiffs  claim university officials delayed warning the campus of the initial two shootings on campus and then attempted to cover up their missteps.

Wisdom From One Who Knows

In his speech tonight, Hincker talked in great detail about what his role was as the chief communicator of information both to the media and those internally about what was going on this campus.

He talked about the use of the World Wide Web as both a “nexus of communication” and “filebox” for statements and communiques released on a constantly changing story.

In this photo taken by Roanoke Times photojournalist Matt Gentry, Hincker was one of several Virginia Tech officials who testified at this week's wrongful death trial in Montgomery County Circuit Court.and a "filebox" for statements and information previously released.

He showed graphics of the spike in traffic on the Virginia Tech Web site on both the day of the April 16, 2007 shootings and more recently on December 8, 2011 when an officer was shot and killed here on this campus.

Other key points from Hincker’s remarks tonight:

• Universities ought to provide media training for student leaders
• No Single Notification System Does It All
• Don’t Let Your Local Media Play Second Fiddle to the National Media

Days Like Today Make An Alabama Journalism Professor Very Proud

Nine Ph.D. students from University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences traveled to Norman, Okla. this weekend to present a total of 14 research papers. (Not Pictured is Elmie Nekmat, who missed our group photo)

NORMAN, Okla.— The beginning of March also signals the beginning of spring academic conference season.

As inconvenient as they are in the middle of a busy semester, these short, usually two-day gatherings are a chance to get feedback on research projects in-progress and catch up with colleagues at other colleges and universities.

It’s also a great chance to see the next generation of mass media scholars in action!

I could not have been prouder as a teacher than I was today to see our students from the University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences presenting their academic papers at this AEJMC Midwinter Conference, which is being held this weekend on the beautiful campus of the University of Oklahoma.

One of those students, Natalie Brown, is on the fast track, entering our Ph.D. program just two years ago (2010) without even completing her master’s degree.   She and I presented a research paper on our ongoing research on CNN’s Black in America franchise.

Then there’s Alice Tunaru, who just a few years ago sat in my undergraduate introductory journalism course as a scholar athlete.  Today she was talking about how young adults access sex-related information online.

I just met Sim Butler and Betsy Emmons last semester when I visited the newest cohort in our Ph.D. program in one of their classes in November.  As first-year doctoral students, Butler and Emmons shared their research on Mississippi State’s University’s efforts to use the #HAILSTATE Twitter hashtag during their recent beat-down on rival Ole Miss last Thanksgiving weekend.

I believe I counted 14 papers that were presented by our graduate students (and one faculty member) at this conference this weekend,   That’s same number of papers as were presented by faculty and students at our host institution, the University of Oklahoma.

What an accomplishment!  Seeing all of this in the plush quarters of the less than five year-old Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication make it all the more thrilling.

Roll Tide!

Can I really take a technology vacation?

I may look like I'm sleeping, but I was tweeting here in 2009 at the Intercollegiate Online News Network Conference at University of Tennessee. Now, help me as I take a sabbatical, No Tweeting for 6 days !

Hey, this was supposed to be my one week of vacation at the end of the summer.

I just wrapped up a great AEJMC Conference in St. Louis after finishing an engaging Race, Gender and Media class at the University of Alabama in July after teaching a 4-week basic news reporting class also at UA during the month of June.

My goal was to relax this week and re-charge so that I can be refreshed for the start of a new school year.

But it’s Wednesday and I’ve done more posting and reading e-mail, planning for classes and WORKING online, even though I’m away from the office supposedly on “VACATION.”

So I’ve decided that I have to CUT off and unplug the computer and stay away from my blog if I really want to relax and get some other fun things done during my time off.

Starting tonight at midnight– Wednesday,August 17, I am going to just let my e-mailbox go and not blog, not tweet, read or post on Facebook.

My self-imposed technology moratorium will end at midnight NEXT Wednesday, August 24th, the first day of fall classes at University of Alabama.

I promise I’ll tell you all about it on my next post– NEXT Wednesday!

Early Arrival Affords Opportunity to See St. Louis Before Tackling AEJMC Business

SAINT LOUIS– The last time I was here in St. Louis in November 2008 it was cold and except for a very quick visit to St. Louis Post-Dispatch and one off-site dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse, I was focused on the business of  participating with the Journalism Education Association Fall Convention.

Fast-forward tw0-and-half years and I now have a fuller view of this historic city– the Gateway to the West.

Immediately upon checking into my hotel, I headed straight for the Gateway Arch, where I had a chance to take the camcorder and shoot a little video.

I learned today that my route from the Arch back to the hotel took me to a spot where a little news was made on Monday.

The Arch-Laclede Landing MetroLink station was closed after a bomb scare Monday involving an unattended suitcase.  The situation lasted about 90 minutes.

Hours later, I was able to catch a shot of one of MetroLink light rail cars arriving.

It’s funny how riding the local rail or train system has been an important part of coming to the AEJMC Conference.

Two summers ago, I took the “silver Line” on “The T” from the Logan International Airport in Boston where AEJMC was held.

The last year, I rode the RTD Light Rail out to the University of Denver where the Cable Center is located.

So, all of these experiences gave me a chance to see the cities in which we were meeting.

Then, today (Tuesday),  the shuttle ride over to Saint Louis University, the oldest university West of the Mississippi River was a chance to see more of the city.    The campus is nice too.    It was the first of two universities I’ll see this week.