WHS's Channel 3 comes up big producing Fox News interview

WALLACE — Wallace Jr./Sr. High School’s Channel 3 News has always pushed to be more than just a standard multi-media class.

The WHS students of Channel 3 showed this once again when they recently facilitated a live interview between city representatives and Fox News Business hosts.

Part of Fox News Business’ “look at business is Small Town, America,” the Center of the Universe was chosen for a segment because it fit their criteria of places with recreation, entrepreneurship and business friendly environment.

Wallace Chamber coordinator Dave Copelan, along with Wallace business owner Rob Wuerfel, went on the air with FNB host Lauren Simonetti to discuss the town’s growth, uniqueness and some of its history.

“Fox producers and anchor Lauren Simonetti picked myself for general background,” Copelan said. “They also picked local business owner Rob Wuerfel to be interviewed, citing his background in World Cup skiing and recent opening of four new businesses in town.”

The production of the remote interview was more than what the Wallace Chamber is able to handle from a live, multi-media standpoint. Fortunately for them though, they were able to call in some local help.

WHS’s very own Channel 3 News were contacted and from there they coordinated with FNB to get the interview set up.

FNB airs live for these segments, so to be live at 5:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, the interview had to be conducted at 2 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

Jared Young, the broadcast instructor at WHS, had his crew in position to make the most of their opportunity to shine.

“They wanted a live interview with their New York-based show, so we all had to get up and be in position and ready by 1:30 a.m. for the show,” Young said. “We then did several tests with two sets of Fox people, and then waited until they called our number for the show and Rob and Dave did their thing.”

Young couldn’t be more proud of his crew for pulling the whole thing off, which required stellar work from students Carter Bailey and Conner Denson.

Originally scheduled to be at the new Blackboard Marketplace on Sixth Street, the Wallace crew had to call an audible due to some technical difficulties.

“Carter was a huge help with Channel 3, making sure we had all the right equipment needed and set up to make the skype interview happen,” Young said. “Our job at WHS was to provide the tech (Laptop, camera, mics, earbuds, etc.) and the savvy to make the smooth sound and picture quality that Fox wanted. We underwent several tests with Fox to check sound and video prior to the interview. We originally were going to have the interview done at the Blackboard Café, but ran into internet connection problems, so we had to move to the best internet connection around which was here at the high school. It was here that we set up a wired connection, which was provided by Conner the next day.”

To view the full interview, visit the Wallace Idaho Chamber Facebook page.