Sick

I'm sick today. I started feeling bad yesterday about noon and it only got worse. I had another busy day which included newslink until 5 class and a speaker from 6-8 and basketball officiating from 8:30-11 (it was supposed to be 12 but I simply couldn't run the court any more). My whole body aches and I had a fever last night of 103 which has since declined slightly. Although my mom isn't here to take car of me lucky for me Jessie has been playing nurse. I'm still in bed right now and I haven't moved since last night when I went to sleep. Hopefully this is something that I'll be over quickly.

Ball

It's been too long since I last wrote so I apologize for that. I've had a busy but pretty uneventful week. I'm the producer this week for newslink which basically means I'm the boss. I started on Thursday and will be producing the newscast until this coming Wednesday.

I'll give you a quick explaination of what I do as a producer. I assign stories to the crews for each day and then I assemble the three news briefs which we broadcast. The producer is responsible for making sure everything goes smoothly during the day. All of these things are pretty cool but I'm also just stuck in the newsroom all day so that gets a little boring. The other interesting thing has been the fact that on Thursday and Friday, my first two days producing, our head instructor has been out sick. On Thursday, the other instructor was there but he was off on Friday so it was all me then. Anyway...that's what I've been doing.

Also, I wanna take a little time to talk about basketball. I'm so proud of my beloved UK Wildcats. They've been fighting so hard and are one quite a streak right now (except that Vandy game, which we won't talk about). I think this season has been on of the most frustrating and rewarding seasons to be a Wildcat fan in a long time.

Corey and I went to Lexington on Tuesday night to watch UK play Georgia. We had a great time and the Cats won so it was a really really fun trip for us.

Last night I went to the Marion Giants vs. Fort Wayne Snider game with my Dad's cousin, Phil Berkley. It was a very competitive game and myself being an Indiana high school basketball fan it was a great venue in a gym with TONS of history at Marion. Marion won and they have a very good chance of making a deep tournament run.

In other high school basketball, I'm really wishing I could be at Ron Furgeson Gymnasium tonight as the Rams and the Wolfpack renew thier rivalry. It should be a great atmosphere as the Rams take on old coach Mike Brown.

That's about it for now.

Oh by the way, I can't wait to get on a golf course!

Wrong

I just read an article that made me cry. I think that every day I

work in a newsroom I become just a little more cauliced to people's circumstances. I think that it's almost a requirement of the job...if I let everything bad that I see effect me I would go insane. But this story hit me.

His name was Demonte. Deomonte was a typical 10-year-old boy. He loved football and candy. He loved to play jokes and dance.

He was also a foster child, a romer with no real family. Five months ago Demonte's class at School 83 on the northeast side of Indianapolis was told to gather on the carpeted floor in the classroom. Marianne Karn, the teacher of the 5th and 6th grade combined classes told the students there had been a terrible tragedy in their class.

She explained that Demonte had been killed. She didn't go into details.

Demonte was at home in his bedroom when he was stabbed to death. The killer was his foster-mother's adult son.

To help some of Demonte's friends deal with their feelings one of the counselers took the students to see Demonte's grave. When they found it tucked in a back corner of a crowded Indy cemetary they were shocked and hurt.

Demonte didn't have a head stone. The only thing marking his grave was the fresh dirt laid over his casket. He had no family to pay for a head stone.

So Demonte's friends made a decision. They would pay for a head stone. They would not let thier friend be forgotten. But students at School 83 don't have a lot of spare cash around, and niether do their parents. So the students decided to have a fundraiser.

This afternoon, the last two hours of school, Demonte's friends will dance in his memory. They will dance with their Valentine's but remember their friend.

I know there are so many more Demonte's in the world...so many people with rough lives who live every day hoping they'll make it to the night. My thoughts and tears certainly don't do anything...I'm not sure what I can do anyway...but I don't understand why I was born into the wonderful family I have and others like Demonte are born into his life. I think it's wrong.

Anchoring

Tonight I was the anchor for Newswatch. Newswatch is a student produced, live, 30 minute broadcast which airs on cable and is only available in Delaware county. The show runs from 9-9:30 pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I'm in a class that runs the Wednesday show so that's why I was anchoring. It was a pretty cool thing. I've had some experience with anchoring but this was my first full fledged newscast. Things went really well...by far our best show yet (that really didn't have much, if anything, to do with my job). It was another good, long, exciting day in Cameron's Chronicles.

Awards

I forgot to mention that my color commentator and I are up for a couple of awards for our work on Ball State football games this past fall. We are up for sports play-by-play broadcast of the year for Indiana colleges. The IASB (Indiana Association of School Broadcasters) is the presenter of that award. We are also up for a Communicator award which is national award for students. I'm excited to find out the results in the next few weeks. I'll keep you updated!

Read the blog bellow...it's new as well.

Gospel and Murder

I tried to share the gospel today. I've never felt good at it (I'm not sure anyone really feels like they're good at telling people about Jesus) but I not only feel insuficient in my efforts to be more honest with you I feel scared to death. But yesterday I saw a door creep open and I knew today I would have a chance to really share about Jesus, and thankfully when the opportunity came today, the Lord put some words in my mouth.

I was out chasing scanner talk with my partner/photographer Megan yesterday and we began talking about Marriage (she's married and has a 2 year old son) and that led to talk about what the Bible says about sex before marriage. Let me say here that she asked me why Jessie and I chose to live the way we do (like not sleeping at each other's places) and so I explained and that led to more questions. However, yesterday this whole conversation took place as she was dropping me off at my apartment so I didn't get to go into much depth and that was certainly a blessing.

I kenw that I would have an opportunity today so I asked one of my room mates about some very good questions Megan had asked (ie: Aren't some parts of the Bible irrelevant of out-dated?) and how he would respond to those questions and ultimately how I could turn the conversation to the gospel.

So today the opportunity presented itself. I don't know how it went. I know I talked a lot (probably way too much) but she did have several good responses. I also know that she has a desire to know the Lord and I'm praying the Lord will use what I said. I also know that sharing the gospel is scary, difficult, and joyful.

Oh, and about the murder part. Megan and I covered a murder today. We got to the scene shortly after the police arrived and we didn't really see anything graphic but we did see the investigation in progress. I hope I don't sound strange or inhumane when I say this but it was a very intriguing and cool story for us. At the time we aired the story there was no suspect we knew about so that's kinda scary.

Other than all that...just another day in Cameron's Chronicles!

Fairmount

Today my partner Steve and I decided to get to the bottom of an issue that's hanging over the small town of Fairmount. Perhaps you've heard of Fairmount, it's actually a small town with a pretty big history. Fairmount is the hometown of two famous people, the first is James Dean and the second is Jim Davis (The creator of Garfield).

Anyway (I'm easily side tracked by history like that) recently the Fairmount town marshall was forced to take leave with pay and just Monday he resigned his position. Also on Monday it was discovered that the Indiana State Police and the FBI are currently investigating the town marshall. So...Steve and I decided we would try to find out what in the world the FBI is doing in Fairmount, Indiana. We drove to Fairmount (about a 35 minute drive) and started asking people what they knew. We continually got the same answer, "Well, I don't know for sure but I heard that..."

We wanted a little more than what was the latest gossip about the story but when we went to the police station you would have thought we were asking for credit card and social security numbers. They would barely mutter "no comment." So we called the "High Hog" as some of the local's called her. She was the boss on the town board but she said she had nothing to say about the situation. At this point Steve and I really needed a story and so far we had nothing. So we decided to go to the local diner (it was a neat little place) and wait for some locals. Boy did we hit the jackpot.

We found out that every day at around noon 6 or 7 local farmers gathered and the diner for lunch. We asked the leader of this group if he would mind if we put a mic on the table and simply record their conversations. He agreed and what an "interview" it was.

We sat around for an hour+ and listened to these fellas shoot the breeze about everything under the sun. We got some good quotes about how the farmers didn't know anything but they all had their ideas about what was going on. The package we turned is now online at www.newslinkindiana.com.

It was a really neat experience and Steve and I got some really good food too. I'll also do some shameless promotion here. For newslink I'll be blogging every Wednesday and today was my first day. You can check it out by clicking on the blog section on the top of the newslink indiana website.

Thoughts

I had a good weekend. I made a few bucks officiating a JV boys basketball game on Friday night then Jessie and a few of her friends and I went to a concert at this cool little place downtown (Jessie and I go there often) and it was really fun. Saturday I got to sleep in! It's been a pretty long time since I got to sleep in past 7:00ish so it was really nice to be able to sleep until 9:30. I was also able to get a few things done around my apartment like laundry, dishes, cleaning the bathroom, and straightening up my room. (My room get pretty messy during the week because I just want to lounge when I get home in the evenings)

Sunday I had to officiate indoor flag football but it wasn't too bad and then one of my roommates- Andrew- and his fiance came over and Jessie and I had a superbowl party with them. Jessie and Heather cooked up a really good meal of steaks, mashed potatoes, corn, and cake! The game was really enjoyable aswell. Not only did the Patriots lose which I thoroughly enjoyed but the game was also just a fun game to watch. We were all on the edge of our seats for the last 8 minutes or so!

Today Steve and I covered a tough story. On Friday night a couple from a local high school died in a car crash. It was the second bad car crash involving teenagers in one week in Henry county (my beat county) so Steve and I decided to do a story on how emergency personel deal with tragic events day in and day out. However, we also went to the high school and spoke with the principle and it was a really tough situation. The school is a small school...maybe 60 kids in the graduating class so everyone was taking things hard. The mother of the boy that died is also a teacher at the elementary school so the staff and everyone was hurting pretty bad. The story turned out pretty good. Once again if you want to watch it you can go to www.newslinkindiana.com.

Right now...I'm sitting in my living room...I just had a tostinos pizza for diner..yum! and now I'm watching a classic movie (at least it's a classic for me) ...................KARATE KID! So I'm done writing for now.