NAFB Blog

Making pottery is a favorite hobby for North Carolina farm broadcaster Rhonda Garrison (Southern Farm Network, Raleigh, NC). “For as long as I can remember I’d wanted to learn to make pottery, but had little opportunity or time while living in the Texas Panhandle,” Rhonda said. In the summer of 2007 she moved to North Carolina with three dogs, and only one family member east of the Mississippi so, she said, “I finally had lots of time, and little did I know that I’d moved to the epicenter of handmade pottery on the East Coast!” She explains how she got started. “In the fall of 2008 I took my first class that involved throwing clay on a potter’s wheel at a city-owned art studio, and about the best I could do was throw a fit.

Kelsey Litchfield from Rio, IL, joined the RFD Radio Network team in Bloomington, IL, this summer, reports Rita Frazer. A junior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Kelsey is studying agricultural communications with a concentration in broadcast journalism. She is a member of 4-H House Cooperative Sorority, Collegiate Farm Bureau, Explore ACES steering committee, and Illini Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow. Recently, she was elected to serve as Member Relations Coordinator on the National Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow officer team. Also, Kelsey is the 2015 Jim Evans Scholarship recipient sponsored by the AAEA Professional Improvement Foundation.

Marlin Bohling describes new RD-TV Studios in Nashville, “The new RFD-TV studios are a feat of engineering. Designed and constructed by companies from New York, the main television studio room is actually comprised of six different sets located around the periphery of the main room,” reports Marlin Bohling, Markets Editor (RFD-TV and Rural Radio, Nashville, TN).  He added, “The five cameras, including an overhead jib camera, are all located in the center of the room and can pivot to cover all of the different sets, which are used for everything from our ag news and market reports to western sports coverage, weather, stand-up teases, and cozy interviews in a living room setting complete with a realistic ‘digital’ fireplace.” He continued, “Hundreds of lighting components are all computer-controlled and instantly reconfigurable. Ten giant LCD monitors arranged on end and combined in two banks of five serve as an amazing backdrop to our news stage and can show any combination of images, graphics, and videos in any size configuration for a dynamic high-action set. New world-class hardware and software systems allow for top tier production capability rivaling other national networks.” 

Joe Cornely (Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, Columbus, OH) shared this photo from a recent taping of the Ohio Farm Bureau weekly public affairs radio show Town Hall Ohio. Joe put Dave Russell, at left, (Brownfield Network, Dublin, OH) on the other side of the mic when he conducted a roundtable with Ohio agricultural journalists. Along with Dave are Susan Crowell (Farm and Dairy newspaper) and Matt Reese (Ohio's Country Journal and Ohio Ag Net). Joe is senior director of corporate communications for OFBF, and he served as NAFB President in 1995.

A new book chronicling the life and broadcast career of Larry Steckline, written by his current wife, Carla Stovall Steckline, former Kansas Attorney General, she also shares her professional life, their courtship and her exit from politics. The book offers a comprehensive look at challenges Larry overcame and achievements he attained in his 50 years of farm broadcasting in Kansas. The book cover says about Larry, “He grew up using an outhouse, became an ag broadcasting powerhouse, was an invited guest at the White House, and now lives in a penthouse – this is the story of Larry Steckline, the ‘farmer's friend.’”Carla said, “We are selling this book on www.larrysteckline.com on behalf of local National Association of FFA chapters. The entire $20 purchase price is being donated to FFA because Larry wants to give back to the agricultural community that made him – personally and professionally – the man he is.”