TAYLORVILLE, Ill. (WAND) — A unique program at Taylorville High School is giving students an opportunity to explore a future in journalism and media production. As a part of the class, the students are not only presenting on-air content to the viewers, but they are also learning about all of the technology that makes it possible to run a live broadcast from start to finish.
Senior, Anthony Revecco, said, "It's a really hands-on student class like no other, because students get to do all of the production, the graphics, the content creation, and all of the media itself."
These students thrive in a fast-paced environment. As part of working on a live broadcast they have to be able to quickly adapt to changing situations and work together as a team while communicating with each other.
"Once I stepped into that studio for the first time, I learned just how much goes into producing a live broadcast."
The kids that are in the class are learning about the industry while also finding a passion that could help them find a career. Whether that be in journalism, media production, or taking elements of what TommyTV has taught them to start their own businesses.
"I took the love of media production that I had through TommyTV and I've turned it into a business creating commercials, wedding videos, and other types of ads for people"
Layne Neil just accepted an offer to attend college next fall to study media production because of the love she found for the industry through this class. In the future she hopes to work in sports broadcasting.
Neil said , "I started to realize this is what I really like to do, and I knew that this is what I wanted to do in the future."
While the students are learning all about the necessary technology, they are also building their confidence.
Teacher, Neil Hohenstein, said, "I think we learn by doing and that's one of the challenges of our class is people get to see what we're learning while we're live so sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes we are really good at what we do."
One thing that the students love most about the program is the freedom that they are given to make each broadcast their own. While they are learning in front of the viewers in real time, they are able to evaluate each broadcast to see what works best and use their creativity to come up with ways to make them even better every time they go live.
"Advisors really let us take our ideas and do whatever we can with them and try our best to make them a reality and sometimes they fail and sometimes they succeed but it's that process for us as students to learn what does work and that doesn't that makes it worth it to me."
If you are interested in learning more about TommyTV you can find them at the Central Illinois STEM Fair on April 9th in Rochester.
Copyright 2025. WANDTV. All Rights Reserved.
