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Documentaries and the digital world

Negaunee Public Schools receives Education Excellence Award

Students in the Negaunee High School digital writing class of Andy Skewis, front row, fourth from left, receive a 2019 Education Excellence Award from the SET SEG Foundation. The class is part of the Miner Broadcasting program. (Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

MARQUETTE — There might be Oscar-winning documentarians beginning their careers at Negaunee High School.

Negaunee Public Schools has been awarded a $2,500 grant from the SET SEG Foundation in partnership with the Michigan Association of School Boards. Specifically, the 2019 Education Excellence Award is for the NHS’s program, Miner Broadcasting.

The Miner Broadcasting program is composed of students in the digital writing class who plan and produce original, informative, educational and creative works. They are responsible for all aspects of production such as operating the camera, graphic engineering and providing on-air voice commentary.

Andy Skewis teaches the digital writing course for juniors and seniors.

“We do a variety of things,” Skewis said. “They do a lot of live streaming, school events, community events, sporting events, music, other special things like graduation. In class, they work on different aspects of filmmaking, video production.”

For instance, Skewis said the students produce a biweekly internet program for their classmates that lasts about 15 minutes, which covers school activities. They also write their own original scripts.

The Education Excellence Award, he said, was given to them based on documentaries — full-length, local historical films — they produced.

One of them was “A Vanishing Breed” about the Mather B. Mine, which received a commendation from the Michigan House of Representatives and will be featured at the International Mining Conference in Marquette.

There’s a special connection here, with Skewis pointing out that when the mine closed, Negaunee High School was built on the property.

The other documentary was “The Ones We Were Waiting For” about the Barnes-Hecker mine tragedy of 1926.

“Every time you do something like this, as people notice what we’re doing and respond to it positively — the community response has been great — I always tell these kids the expectations are greater every year, and so they’re trying to find ways creatively to kind of up their game,” Skewis said.

The grant money will be used to buy better sound equipment and other hardware that supports technology so students can stay updated in their skills, he said.

Not every student will become a professional broadcaster. However, it’s likely they will take away knowledge they can use later in life.

“It can help you in a lot of ways,” Skewis said. “Obviously, organization. We do a lot of writing, script writing, and so they pay attention. Every word is shared with somebody else.”

NHS senior Chaz Bluse is working on the latest documentary, which has yet to be named.

The topic, though, already has been chosen.

“It’s about the strikes around 1946 in the Marquette Iron Range,” Bluse said. “There was a mass strike across the entire nation, but most industry settled almost right away.”

To the best of his recollection, the strike lasted about six months in the local region.

“It was just a lot of turmoil, and (we) felt like it was worth talking about,” Bluse said.

As a producer, he has to oversee a variety of work, some of which is researching the subject at places such as the archives at Northern Michigan University.

“Besides that, it’s just a lot of organization so far because we have so many pictures and so many different documents, and we want to try to get it all in the documentary,” Bluse said.

He said the hope is to finish the documentary by May.

For Bluse, the project brings out his love of the visual process.

“I love the cinematography, just recording anything,” Bluse said. “I also love script writing and editing, pretty much the whole process, but my favorite part is coming up with the angles, trying to make things look pretty.”

Skewis said five students in the program plan to pursue broadcast media studies in their post-secondary academic careers.

NHS senior Jacob French, for example, wants to go into sports broadcasting.

The class has helped him in several ways, including being provided headsets for doing play-by-play and color commentating, he said.

“I decided to take this class last year because I knew I was already going to school for sportscasting, so I figured this would just be a good way to kind of get my feet wet and see what I have to look forward to,” French said.

Jim Derocher, a former NPS superintendent, now is an account executive in the Upper Peninsula for SET SEG, a Lansing-based company that focuses on school insurance.

He said the Excellence Education awards program annually recognizes schools throughout the state.

Derocher said the Negaunee class was one of 10 groups in Michigan — and one of three in the U.P. — honored this year, with over 200 applications received.

“It’s a pretty distinguished award that you’re getting,” he told the students at a Friday ceremony.

For more information on the SET SEG Foundation, visit setseg.org/foundation.

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