Westlake High School students tape a public service announcement during a class at the recently completed WHBS-TV studios. (West Life photos by Larry Bennet)

WHBS adds more awards to its collection
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published March 21, 2007

With a studio and a collection of professional broadcast equipment most college communications departments would envy, WHBS-TV, Westlake High School’s cable access television station could be expected to create quality productions. The student-run station continues to do that and recently won an international award from the 13th annual Crystal Cable Communicator Awards 2006 Video Competition.

“These are No. 10 and 11 for us,” said Westlake High School teacher Tony Hoty, who serves as faculty moderator of WHBS-TV. The station has won eight in the last four years.

Staff members earned the Award of Distinction for coverage of the Westlake -Midpark High School football game in September. The award is presented for projects that exceed industry standards in production or communication skills.

“The Midpark game was kind of special because that was Vern Long’s homecoming,” Hoty said.

Long, who had been head football coach and taught at Westlake High School for many years, had just taken over the football program at Midpark. Students edited old clips of Long coaching the Demons with new footage of him coaching at Midpark and set them to Bon Jovi’s song “Who Says You Can’t Come Home.”

“I think that extra production, which was something we didn’t do every game, might have been noticed by the judges,” Hoty said.

 WHBS also earned recognition for its broadcast of the Demons varsity boys basketball game against Olmsted Falls in January 2006

“Olmsted Falls is the defending Southwest Conference champ 14 years in a row,” Hoty said. “So it’s always a good game because Westlake always plays up to the competition, so it’s always a really exciting game. So you don’t have to know basketball and you don’t have to know broadcasting to appreciate the energy that’s coming through the screen.”

The station also entered two other games as well as a documentary it produced on the efforts of the Westlake Historical Society to preserve the Westin House on Center Ridge Road.

Tony Hoty and student Bryan Kristy man the control booth outside the WHBS-TV studio.

Hoty believes the amount and sophistication of the station’s equipment gives it a leg up on the competition in terms of live sporting events coverage, which requires the simultaneous use of multiple cameras.

About 125 students are currently involved in the station, with Hoty describing 50 as “hard-core members.”

Many students join in their freshman year, Hoty said. But others, due to commitments to sports or other activities, become involved later.

“We’ve got kids that join as juniors and seniors who pretty much say, ‘Wow. What was I thinking? I should have done this before,’” Hoty said.

“You don’t have to sign up by Sept. 15,” Hoty said about WHBS. “You can join tomorrow.”

The students also finished completing their main studio, which contains three professional sets. Well, sort of finished.

“We’ll never really probably ever going to be finished,” Hoty said. “It’s like ‘when do you really finish remodeling your house?’”

While WHBS moved to a section of the Westlake Performing Arts Center in the spring of 2005, it took additional time to add some personal touches.

Inside Studio A is 1,600 square feet of floor space, studio guest seating for 25, three sets and two dressing rooms.

A news set features numerous monitors behind the news desk with clocks showing times of cities across the globe. A sports set, from which the weekly hour-long “Demon Zone” wrap-up of Westlake High School sports is broadcast, features basketballs, footballs, helmets and other sports memorabilia. The third set, which students have taken to calling the “Oprah set,” features two leather couches donated by Basista Furniture. “The Professional Series” programs, which consist of interviews with area professionals, originates form this set.

A classroom/conference room that seats 20, a control room and storerooms take up the rest of the WHBS complex.

Hoty put in 1,031 hours of labor himself completing the studio, which included building sets, painting, laying carpeting, framing and assembling equipment.

Final construction of the WHBS-TV studio required:

• 32 4x8 sheets of drywall
• 650 square feet of carpeting donated by Quality Floor & Tile
• 11 gallons of paint
• 10 double rolls of wallpaper
• 9.5 square foot custom stained glass window
• 1,680 square feet of 2x4s
• 3,500+ screws and nails
• 10x12foot landscaped granite and stone patio

The station covers 32 different sports with play-by-play, produces 600+hours of original programming every year since 1995 and covers plays, concerts, educational lectures, community events and sporting events. Students can take up to three TV production classes.

All WHBS equipment, sets and furniture have been donated to the Westlake Schools.

WHBS-TV can be seen on channel 22 on Time Warner Cable and channel 18 on WOW. The program schedule is online at http://www.wlake.org/whbs/.