As you browse the March schedule (in color!), you’ll no doubt observe that we launch our Spring Membership Festival on March 1. We’ve lined up some terrific new shows for our pledge drive, including a new train special on Thursday, March 1; “Big Band Vocalists” on Saturday, March 3; a new Dr. Wayne Dyer program on Monday, March 5; Peter, Paul & Mary on Saturday, March 10; and, the incomparable “Phantom of the Opera” on Sunday, March 11. Get your highlighter and mark your calendar!

“Capitol Outlook”, our legislative weekly report, concludes with the last two shows airing on March 2 and March 9. Also this month, we are trying to reschedule the “One-On-One with Governor Mead” program which was scheduled to occur on February 2, but unfortunately we had to cancel because of a malfunction that occurred in our production truck. We had been waiting for a confirmation from the Governor’s office, but we didn’t have it in time to publish in this program guide. Watch for on-air announcements to confirm this program; we’re hoping either March 22 or 29.

We had a terrific legislative reception and celebration for Wyoming PBS Early Childcare Providers of the Year on February 20. Our thanks to BP/Rockies for supporting our early childhood program and the reception; and to First Lady Carol Mead for hosting a breakfast for the winning caregivers.

Finally, our thanks to you for your many contributions to Wyoming PBS!

Artist rendition of Wyoming PBS Mobile Production Truck

Wyoming PBS’ Mobile Production Truck arrived in Wyoming in January of 2004 just in time to provide coverage of the Governor’s State of the State Address and the legislative session. With a purchase cost of nearly a million dollars, it has always been the staff’s desire to provide as much protection as possible for the truck. Through the years, Wyoming PBS has rented storage space for the truck.

From the time of the first heavy snow fall , Wyoming PBS staff have longed for a permanent facility to house the truck when it is not on the road. That longing has come to fruition with the completion on the Wyoming PBS Mobile Production Services and Instructional Facility. The new home of Wyoming PBS’ mobile production truck will allow year round temperature controlled access to the truck for maintenance, upgrades and repairs. Additionally, the facility provides a temperature controlled environment that will allow students access to the truck for instructional purposes even on the coldest of Wyoming days.

Wyoming PBS’ new Mobile Production Services and Instructional Facility is located at the corner of Day Drive and Rose Lane in the College’s Technical Research Park. The 40’ X 60’ building provides a temperature controlled bay for the Mobile Production Truck , an office and restroom for staff working at the facility and 4 cold storage bays for other storage needs. The building also includes covered parking for Wyoming PBS’s Snow Cat.

Wyoming PBS’ Mobile Production Truck is presently undergoing a major upgrade which will allow it to produce and distribute via satellite, television programs in full High Definition. It is comforting to know that when the $800,000 upgrade is completed that the truck will have a warm place to come home to.

Funding for the building was provided by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Wyoming PBS’s Ready to Learn initiative contributes toward one of our state’s most urgent educational goals: ensuring that our children begin school ready to learn.

The core of Ready to Learn is providing non-violent, commercial-free, educational children’s television programming seven hours per day to Wyoming households. This daily broadcast includes some of the most popular, award-winning and engaging programming available today: Arthur, Dragon Tales, Clifford, Between the Lions, Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. Ready to Learn also provides extensive outreach services to parents, childcare providers and other early childhood professionals, free of charge.

How Ready to Learn “extends the reach” of PBS children’s programs:

• “Ready to Learn” initiatives extend learning beyond the TV screen — through books, websites, extra materials and activities.
• Nationally 875,000 parents and early childhood professionals have participated in over 21,000 community-based “Ready to Learn” workshops on using television wisely and preparing children to read. Ready to Learn coordinators across the country have distributed 2.5 million new books to children.
• In Wyoming, “Ready to Learn” is just beginning, but the mission is the same — to work with parents and childhood professionals to distribute books and provide training so that Wyoming children can be better prepared to enter school.

How can PBS children’s shows help children learn?

• Research shows that teens who have watched Sesame Street as children had better grades in school, read more books, had higher leves of achievement and expressed less aggressive attitudes than those who watched rarely or not at all.
• Recent studies have also shown that the PBS series Dragon Tales responds directly to helping children be more resilient to change, modeling the value of persisting at a task, helping kids to more goal-oriented and more likely to pursue challenging experiences.
• Arthur and Reading Rainbow encourage children to read — by recommending good books for kids, and showing children the fun of storytelling.
• Zooboomafu teaches children about animals and our natural world; again, studies show that kids who like and care about animals grow up to be caring, loving adults.

To learn more about the Wyoming PBS Ready to Learn program visit our website at http://www.wyomingpbs.org/readytolearn/

Find your local legislator and make your voice for children be heard! Click here to send an Email!

The NAEYC Academy for Early Childhood Program Accreditation administers a national, voluntary accreditation system to help raise the quality of all types of preschools, kindergartens, and child care centers. See the NAEYC website for complete information.

And of course, we hope you will join us during our December Membership Festival and consider a generous, end of the year gift. With Celtic Woman, Lennon Sisters, Bee Gees, Barbara Streisand, Andrea Bocelli, and new documentaries on horses and Heart Mountain, there is much to support in both national and local programming. Also, the donations raised during this drive are still matched by the Wyoming Legislature, helping grow our production endowment and more local programs.

Finally, in an effort to improve our service to you, we have hired a new programming consultant and our goal is to make Wyoming PBS even better! One change starting this month, on Thursday nights, we have stacked two Doc Martin programs together, starting at 8 pm. Also, the repeat of Masterpiece Theater “Downton Abbey” starts this month, which leads into the new series coming in January.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and thanks for all you do for Wyoming PBS!

Governor Matt Mead and family become members of Wyoming PBS.

The season for giving Thanks is here…and it is the perfect time for us to express our appreciation to all the friends who have contributed to Wyoming PBS over the past year. Our underwriters, members, donors, the Wyoming Legislature, our governing Boards – the Central Wyoming College Board of Trustees and Wyoming Community College Commission, our very important Wyoming PBS Foundation, and of course, all the volunteers who help us during pledge drives and other events. The staff at Wyoming PBS extends our sincere thanks to each of you – you make our work and achievements possible!

Wyoming PBS sponsored several very successful events in September and October. Our “Prohibition” screenings at Western Wyoming Community College, the University of Wyoming, and Central Wyoming College were well attended and we heard some very entertaining stories about moonshine, the prostitution tax in Cheyenne, the hated revenuers, and underground tunnels in Hudson – Wyoming was an exciting place to be during Prohibition! We also had a tailgate tent before the University of Wyoming/Nebraska football game to promote the Prohibition series. A very busy fall season!

Coming up: November is “Native American Heritage Month”, and several programs are scheduled to honor our tribal neighbors. Another important holiday – Veterans’ Day – is commemorated this month, so watch for special programming on November 10-11-12. It is important for us to pay tribute to the men and women who sacrificed so much for our freedoms, and we salute all the soldiers who have served and are serving this great nation! Thank you.

Finally, it is time for another winter festival – the end-of the year, membership drive begins on November 26, and you’ll find some terrific new shows – The Greatest Duets, Ed Sullivan Comedy Special, Barbra Streisand, Andrea Bocelli in Central Park, and “Doc Martin” encores this month – all this and much more on your Wyoming PBS station.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ruby Calvert
General Manager

Thanks to production funding from members LIKE YOU and our production endowment, we’re also able to present the story of Wyoming during prohibition. Produced by Deborah and Greg Hammons of Worland, “Prohibition in Wyoming” archives the research and scholarship of University of Wyoming history professor Dr. Phil Roberts, and memories of many Wyoming people on this turbulent time in Wyoming. On Sunday, October 2, at 7 PM join us for Part 1 of Ken Burns’ PROHIBITION, followed by PROHIBITION IN WYOMING, at 8:45 PM. Part 1 of Ken Burns’ series then repeats starting at 9:15 PM (and if you miss the premiere of the Wyoming story, it repeats on Thursday, October 6 at 7 PM.

We’re also excited to announce that with your donations during our June pledge drive, and other gifts, we were able to deposit $74,616 in private donations into our production endowment (which was matched by state funds). With these gifts and state match-endowment in Cheyenne! Quite phenomenal – proving again how important local programs are to you – our Wyoming citizens. As this endowment continues to grow, we’ll all reap the benefits of this funding stream for quality local content.

Love the theatre? Music? Ballet? On Friday evenings at 8 PM, look forward to the PBS Arts Fall Festival – a nice way to celebrate the end of the week! Again, thanks for all your support!

Penny Hotovec

I have to say I have one of the most unique jobs around. As the Ready To Learn Coordinator for Wyoming PBS, I often get to travel with a dinosaur or a big red dog, a “duty” not mentioned in many job descriptions for adults.  Yes I use the term adult loosely.  I am certainly of an age to be considered one but I choose to keep my heart and mind in the spirit of a child.  I can’t help it.  It’s a side effect of all the time spent with children and parents across Wyoming and seeing the awe and amazement in their faces when they encounter the enormous “real” creatures I bring with me.

Last month I was lucky enough to be invited to the Washakie Museum in Worland to share some time with the kids enrolled in the summer camps the museum hosts.  I was also lucky enough to be joined by my good friend “Buddy” from Dinosaur Train.  The PBS children’s series focuses on basic scientific thinking skills as viewers learn about life science, natural history and paleontology.  Dinosaur Train also has an interactive website, www.pbskids.org/dinosaurtrain as well as an Ipod App.

Buddy and I had a great time meeting all the children that have such an enthusiasm for dinosaurs, adventure and learning.  I can’t tell you how excited the children were to see Buddy and hug and play with him! Can anything be more spectacular than the sparkle in a child’s eye when imagination comes to life?

For more information about Dinosaur Train and all the children’s programming on Wyoming PBS go to www.wyomingpbs.org.  For interactive games and activity ideas visit www.wyomingpbs.org/family.

June 6, 1944 – D-Day – and another date we will never forget. You’ll note that on June 6 at 7:00 pm, we have a special program, “American Road to Victory” to highlight this significant date. We hope you’ll watch and join us in remembering and saluting all our World War II veterans!
For those of you watching us “over the air” – through a translator, or directly from one of our transmitters – please note that as of July 1, we will be changing our channel numbers. Our primary HD channel, which is now 4.5, (or 6.5 or 8.5 depending upon which transmitter or translator you are watching) will become 4.1 (or 6.1 or 8.1). Our secondary channel (CREATE/WORLD) will become 4.2 (or 6.2 or 8.2) – instead of its current number. These numbers have confused listing services and cable companies for years: we are hoping that by making our primary channel “_.1″, and our secondary channel “_.2″, that we can solve these issues. Also, if you are an over the air viewer, you will need to rescan your television in order to pick up these channels on July 1. Thanks!

Coming in October: Prohibition, from producer Ken Burns. We’ll have a related local program and screenings to go with this series – much more to come on your Wyoming PBS station! Thanks for your support, and til next month, enjoy these golden days of summer!

Ruby Calvert
Wyoming PBS General Manager

Producer Geoff O'Gara

So when it comes to the long-delayed “Migrations” documentary: that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. I had other stuff to do. Really.

And if anybody says, “Wait a minute, weren’t you working on that two years ago?”, well, let’s change the name – we’ll call it “Crossroads” this time – and hope they don’t make the connection.

“Migrations” – er, “Crossroads” – is headed into edit. That will take a month or so, because there’s some original music and fun animations that have to blend into the footage we shot. And I can say, after a week of diving back into the footage, that it should turn out to be a pretty cool show. Here are a few reasons why:

• The subject (I suppose you might be wondering): the longest wildlife migration in the country is right here in our backyard – pronghorn that travel from Grand Teton National Park through the Gros Ventre Mountains and all the way down to the I-80 corridor
• The footage: this is easy in Wyoming, where stunning landscapes are everywhere, from the sage-covered plains to the snow-capped peaks. But we took it a notch higher in this one by hiring a helicopter and swooping after the antelope in the mountains between Pinedale and Jackson Hole
• The approach: at some point we realized that we didn’t want to make another solemn wildlife documentary, with biologists talking science and wildlife advocates tearing up – oh, that’s all in there, but we’ve added the humans who migrate as well, from the oil field worker to the wealthy Second-homer, and it enlarges the story, making it quite different from the usual fare

Now begins the hard work. The producer (that’s me) turns a pile of paper (that’s the script) over to the editor (that’s Thompson Coles), and essentially goes fishing for awhile. It’s a brilliant script, of course, and if it doesn’t result in a brilliant documentary, well, that’s someone else’s fault (I was off fishing, after all).

In all seriousness, this next phase is one of the hardest parts of assembling a documentary. We’ll find shots that don’t work, narration that doesn’t flow, an image missing that we need to cover an edited interview. Sometime in the next month or two, a documentary will emerge. And if you ask me how we got there, I’ll repeat the words of Geoffrey Rush, the actor, playing a Elizabethan theater producer explaining with a smiling shrug how a play gets to the stage in the wonderful movie “Shakespeare in Love” – “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

President Bush was one of several prominent politicians of the late 20th century who generously sat for interviews to be included in our documentary about Sen. Alan Simpson. Bush’s participation wasn’t given out of love for Wyoming PBS – like Ted Kennedy, Dick Cheney, David McCullough and many others, he did it for Simpson, who distinctively made deep and lasting friendships in the fickle world of Washington, D.C.

We met in a small guest house on the compound converted into an office, surrounded by Bush family photos, the largest portion of them featuring him and another President who happens to be his son, George W. Bush. The former President was informal, a little wobbly, gracious, and short on details – what you might expect of an 85 year old man, though I reminded myself that only a month earlier he had donned a parachute and jumped out of a plane to celebrate his birthday.

He remembered throwing snowballs with Simpson from the White House roof, but not the dinner they shared the night before he sent troops to Kuwait to oust the invading Iraqis. I nudged him to talk about the way the Republican Party has evolved from his and Simpson’s day, when the moderate wing of the party held sway – but he sidestepped the question, and I realized later I was uncomfortably juxtaposing the party of old with the party of his son’s term in office.

After we were done, the President went next door to chat with staff about flying to Germany for a commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which happened while he was in the White House – there was a question whether to fly commercial or private. Even former Presidents from wealthy families are getting roughed up by the economy. Barbara Bush was riding around the compound in a golf cart.

I was reminded of the ordinary human scale of history makers when you meet them in the flesh, as my work sometimes allows. Jimmy Carter, smaller than I expected in stature, signing the strip mine bill in the Rose Garden, shaking hands limply with a tired smile. Al Simpson, stymied by new phone technology in his cluttered office, cuddling his shy granddaughter when she saw a camera in the room. George H.W. Bush grabbing my arm because he has balance problems, like many elderly persons; rubbing sea salt from his eyebrow, and apologizing with good humor when he couldn’t remember an event.

Driving back to Boston, still in a driving rain, radio on and cell phone chiming, I felt a certain futility – we got the interview we needed, but a journalist wants more. It takes hours to loosen the memory and find those telling details. Al Simpson has given us those hours. That’s the quest in a good documentary – not just to repeat the textbook version of history, but to give viewers that intimate moment, when four people sat at the dinner table upstairs in the White House and a President told his close friends from Wyoming, with a heavy heart, that he was ordering soldiers into combat the next morning.