Author: Tom White

Teaching To The Test Pattern: Mark Hendren from Helena High School

The highlights were crap.

Mark Hendren will tell you that himself. He was a teenager at Mississippi State. The cameraman who was supposed to shoot highlights for TV stations across the Southeast didn’t show. Mark said he could do it. He had never done it. He had watched someone do it. He said yes anyway.

The footage was bad. But the guy who was supposed to be there came back the next day and taught him. Zoomed in on this. Pulled back this way. This is how I do it. Mark learned. He went on to shoot for ESPN in his teens, work all four TV stations in Birmingham, and build a career that a whole other podcast could cover.

He’s three years into the classroom now. Helena High School. Teaching broadcast.

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Teaching To The Test Pattern: Billy Dunn from the Albertville Innovation Academy

He outproduced NASA. Seven cameras to their four at the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center. And at the end of the year, he sat down and told me he didn’t think he grew.

This conversation with Billy Dunn from Albertville Innovation Academy is one of the most honest things we’ve put on this podcast. Billy came from Fox 6 in Birmingham — gold standard broadcast — walked into a classroom, and is now three years in, running five jumbotrons across five sports, building a state-level AV teacher conference from scratch, and wondering if he’s doing it right. The answer might surprise you.

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