Leno Drama Leading to Big Changes?

"Your local news starts right now!"

If you're like me, you hear those 6 words every single weeknight, right before KRBC News at Ten starts. It's the last thing Jay Leno says as his new show fades to black. And now, the world knows that the days of hearing that phrase are numbered. At least, in a way. But we'll revisit that in a little.

I've always had a little something of a fascination with Mr. Leno. I was never a regular Tonight Show viewer (I'm more of a Jon Stewart fan). But even when I was younger, I remember clipping a couple of headlines out of my hometown newspaper in east Texas and mailing them in to him, hoping they'd pop up on his show (to my knowledge, they never did).

Then in high school, I got my start in television because of another Leno bit. Through a scheduling error, I found myself in Media Technology class ("A/V Club" to some). It allowed me and some of my friends to roam around the halls of our school, filming whatever we could find that was interesting that was worthy of filming. Then one day, we had the brilliant idea of ripping off "Jaywalking". Although I'm a producer now, I was the on-camera guy for this job. We came up with some EASY questions, just to test our classmates. And sure enough, they couldn't answer.

Flash forward a few months: several installations of "Hallwalkin'" later, and I'm something of a campus celebrity. And in a good way, too! You'd be surprised how many people want to be on TV, even if it's just broadcast through the school, and even if they know they're going to look dumb if they can't answer easy questions.

Now, years later, Jay Leno's show comes on right before mine. But thanks to a series of questionable moves by the big guys at 30 Rock, that experiment appears to be ending soon, and Leno will be out of prime time. I didn't work for KRBC when The Jay Leno Show launched, but I remember the contention that went on before the show started. Affiliates around the country weren't happy about it. Case in point: The NBC station in Boston -- Leno's hometown, mind you -- initially refused to even run his show, and only did so because NBC, shall we say, talked them into it.

I'm not sure how I feel about this whole saga... I've heard it said that the late night drama is more interesting than the late night shows, so maybe this isn't such a terrible thing after all. But what's next? NBC has let it be well known that they don't want to lose Leno, even if it means making some Major-with-a-capital-M changes. What about Conan O'Brien, who was promised The Tonight Show years ago? Does he accept his show being pushed back a half-hour? Does he bail for another network? What about Jimmy Fallon and... that other guy that comes on after Jimmy Fallon?

And of course, what of KRBC in Abilene, Texas? We have no control over what shows the network picks to run before our newscast starts. We're just spectators, along with the rest of the country.

So, I want to know what you think. Are you on Team Jay? Team Conan? Do you think, like I do, that Randy Turner should be the new host of The Tonight Show? (He'd still be able to do news and weather for KRBC... the guy is just that good). Or do you think people should just turn off the TV and curl up with a good book... after watching the 10 o'clock news, of course.

Dapper Does the Rose Bowl

While mosts sports fans in Abilene were at home watching the Rose Bowl, former KRBC sports director Michelle Dapper was on the sidelines taking in the action. Dapper now serves as the sports director for KEZI, the ABC affiliate in Eugene, Oregon.

As you can imagine, the Rose Bowl has been the top story in town for the last few weeks. However, the Ducks were left with disappointment when it was all said and done. Ohio State was able to defeat Oregon 26-17.

Michelle described the atmosphere in Pasadena as "amazing," and I'm sure it was. Check out her report from the Rose Bowl by clicking on this link: http://kezi.com/page/157580.

Randy Turner Nails AHS Score Prediction

You hear sports personalities spouting out score predictions all the time. But how often do they get them right?

KRBC's Tyler Edwards and Rob Mooring weren't too far off on their AHS game predicitions. Tyler predicted a 20-14 win for AHS. Rob went with 35-17...which could've easily happened.

However, it was the man of many hats who came out on top in this contest. Anchor, chief meteorologist, and fortune teller Randy Turner correctly predicted a score of Abilene High 28, Katy 17.

It only took the humble Turner about 30 seconds to text me when the game ended to congratulate himself. In fact, that text may have arrived prior to the end of the game.

Either way, props have to go out to Randy for hitting the score right on the money!

Same song, second verse

It happened again. Enough said.

Hey, I have that shirt...

Did you see that episode of The Office, where Pam and Phyllis showed up wearing the same outfit?


That happens all the time around here. And let's face it, there are probably less shopping options in Abilene than there are in Scranton.

The other day, Brittany and I were wearing the same sweater.

If you look closely at a KRBC promotional commercial, you'll see Stephanie, Brittany and Maria wearing the same shirt in different colors. I think they also each own several colors of that shirt themselves.


Megan and I also own the same ruffly shirt in black and white. Stephanie and I each splurged on the exact same special occasion dress. She wore hers at the MDA telethon, I wore mine at Bob Bartlett's 30th anniversary party.

So how do you keep from pulling a Pam/Phyllis at the office? Any advice?

Icing disaster leads to happy hearts!

The girls of the newsroom got together the weekend after Thanksgiving for the construction of what would be the biggest, baddest gingerbread village in the history of edible art.

Nance, Angela, Stephanie, Laura, Brittany
(not pictured: Brandi, Priscilla, Michelle, Morgan & Nora)

We had grand plans for our "Frontier Fabulous!" town, which included a hotel, farmers' market, shoe store, martini bar, coffee shop and decked out town square.

But, we quickly learned, we are not aces of cake. Or gingerbread.

The icing which would have served as glue was nowhere near sticky enough. The soggy lasagna noodles did not make for a cute ruffly roof as intended, and weren't possible to paint. We also ran out of dough... and patience.

But we refused to give up. After five hours of fighting gravity (and discovering Sixlets and Twizzlers stuck to the most inappropriate of places) somehow, our frontier became fabulous.

The "Martini Barn"

"Farmer's Market"

"Frontier Fabulous!"

It didn't look like anything Cake Boss would have made, but gosh darn it, we were proud. And who cares that our coffee shop ended up in the trash and our hotel never made it past the blueprint stage?

What more does a Fabulous Frontier need than a farmers market, a shoe store, a bar and a Christmas tree? We thought we might have a shot at the $500 grand prize, which we considered using for an office Christmas party... until we showed up and one woman had constructed a perfectly-scaled Honey I Shrunk the Kids church, with stained glass windows and everything.

1st place!

But we DID win 1st Prize in the group category. (We were the only ones.) So, we all decided to use the $100 Downtown Dollars to adopt an Angel.

(picture of Angel's new outfit deleted... just in case)

Our angel is 12. Apparently the older kids are much less likely to be adopted, so we were more than happy to shop for a pre-teen. We went to Under One Roof, where we made it out with four really cute gifts, plus two things to give for Be a Santa to a Senior.

Giving is the BEST gift for Christmas!

Today was the last day to drop off Angel gifts, and Santa to a Senior is wrapping up (literally) on Tuesday. If you're still looking to give, KTAB Santa's Helpers is in real need. We have more children than before, and donations are coming in more slowly. If you'd like Santa to bring you a happy heart for Christmas, please consider!

Local News Needs Credits!

This is the second day this season that we've pulled ourselves straight out of bed and into the newsroom to keep you safe during icy weather conditions. And it's only early December!

Here's a picture of a few of us in our "no one is going to see me so no need to fix my hair" getup. Well, Tim Johnston jumped into the picture looking dapper. But he's on air.



I'm trying to count how many of us came in early this morning, in addition to the 12 or so people who are always here getting the morning shows on the air. I've counted 19.

We're shooting video, tracking accidents, editing video, going live, answering phones for school closings, answering phone calls from impatient people who want to know if schools have closed well before the schools have decided, updating the web site, updating the ticker, and coordinating it all.

So, a special thanks to the following people who came in early today --

• Andrew Carlson - photographer
• Kristi Drake - phones
• Hope Ekwue - producer
• Brandi Fordyce - phones, personnel coordinator
• Marc "Goose" Gustafson - photographer
• Stephanie Harris - anchor
• Marchita Johnson - producer
• Tim Johnston - reporter
• Austin Kellerman - ticker, personnel coordinator
• Laura Kellerman - website
• Katherine Lane - reporter
• Priscilla Luong - reporter
• Mark Moseley - producer
• Sam Nichols - meteorologist
• Maria Oliver - reporter
• Brittany Pelletz - reporter
• Victor Sotelo - reporter
• Angela Taylor - reporter
• Randy Turner - meteorologist

Y'all are great! And expect to do it again soon. Blame it on El Nino!

(I also can't forget the people who work this shift every day -- and local news doesn't run credits!)

• Chelsea Delz
• Megan Dobbs
• Kailey Franz
• Joey Hardin
• Pam Langford
• Ron Rosseau
• Richard Rushton
• Jake Templeton
• Chris Whited