I enrolled in the University of Maryland as a Music Major in January, 1971.  I was amazed that most of my classes were going to be music classes.  As such, I found myself hanging around the Tawes Fine Arts Building most of the time. There I took class piano, voice and a bunch of other stuff.  Each day when I left the building, I would walk down the stairs to the basement where I could exit the building into the C-Lot parking lot.

On the way out of the building I passed a large technical area that had a bunch of video equipment. There were always a few guys hanging around there that looked like they were having a good time.

This was the University of Maryland RTVF or Radio Television Film Division. It so happened that my dad knew someone there. Somewhere in my dad's travels, he had met a man named Gene Weiss. Gene was the head of the RTVF Department at the University and I asked my father to make an introduction for me.

At that time, I was particularly interested in audio. I had already begun to build my home studio and I had self taught myself a great deal about electronics and audio.

I arranged an interview with Gene and told him of my interests. I think this was in the Fall of '72. when he suggested I take TV-101, an introduction to television. He also suggested I join the Television Workshop.

THESE THINGS I DID……

First, the TV course was a bore. It was one of those college courses where there were a couple of hundred people in a giant lecture hall.  It was taught by Mike DuMonceau. Mike was pretty interesting fellow, but I never quite understood the reason I was in this course. Now, of course, I understand the benifit of getting introduced to a subject, but then I just wanted to get involved with the equipment and production.

Joining the TV Workshop was really where I learned a great deal. Each morning we would meet, extremely early, to produce a news show that some guy in the Technical Center would run between televised math and speech classes that ran on the closed circuit system all over the campus.

NEWSBEAT, the daily news program, was something that really interested me. I shot film, some of which I still have, created an animated open on 16mm film and even directed a few of the programs.

It was during this process, that I met several people with which I became good friends.

Steve Howard
Steve was the guy that ran the tapes for us during the workshop news. He came in religiously each morning for us at 6:00 AM. He would warm up the cameras and huge tape recorders and help us get the programs on the air.

Dan Mayer,
Dan soon became one of my best friends.  We brainstormed all sorts of crazy ideas.  Dan eventually became my roommate.  Together we started WOCR Radio, built a cabin in the woods, drilled a water well and many other things.

Jerry Cesak
Jerry was the star of the Televison Workshop.  He was an on air personality at WASH-FM in Washington D.C., and the main announcer for our news program each morning.  Jerry also was also a partner in WOCR Radio.  Today he is a major radio personality in Southern California.  Check him out!  http://www.star941sandiego.com

Rhonda Gunner
Rhonda became my wife.  At this writing, we have been married 29 years.  How's that for a good friend.

My involvement with the workshop was serious. I worked hard to collect news materials such as slides, films and other things that would make the program more professional.

Later, I decided to produce a musical program. Since Steve had this part time job at WETA the Washington DC public broadcasting station, he made it possible for us to get programs on the air once in a while. This was too much for me to pass up.

I wrote this musical program that centered around Jim Hansen.  Jim had organized a choral group that included several High Point High School alumni. I recorded them doing several renaissance pieces. I called the program RENAISSANCE MUSIC, THE METHOD AND THE MESSAGE.

It was a 29 minute program. The recordings were done at the National Shrine. After I recorded the track, I spent several days shooting 16mm B&W footage of stuff that could be used as atmosphere footage. Jerry Cesak and I spent many days shooting around the National Shrine. We were also introduced to a Brother at one of the Monasteries near the Shrine. He allowed us to follow him around and shoot him preparing for a mass.

When the shoot time came, we used the recorded track, had Jim's group "lip sync" to it and rolled in the film pieces. Jim wrote introductions to each piece that he read. Soon we were finished!!

The show went well, and it was nominated for an Emmy. We didn't win, but I was honered anyway.

Soon thereafter, I was asked to work as a student employee in the tech center. Steve Howard worked there with two others. The Chief Engineer at the time was Jeff Matthews.  He taught me a great deal about television.  Steve and I nicknamed "Jessie".  There was an assistant engineer whose name I cannot remember and then there was Steve Howard and Joe Camp. We ran the tape shows, set up the cameras and I learned a whole lot about professional broadcast video.

Soon, the assistant quit, then Jeff quit then that left me.  So, I became the Chief Engineer.

During the WOCR days, I met Richard Friedel and Greg Kozikowski. Both of these guys were tremendous help to me. Richard actually came to work with me as the assistant. We took the whole place on. Remodeled everything, tried to upgrade and organize the place more like a television station and formalized the operation with students. Richard and I even taught classes in engineering to the students.

The RTVF Department was located in the Tawes Fine Arts Building.	Jeff and Joe Camp at the Camera Controls.	Richmond Hill Video Switcher and the RCA Audio Console	The Richmond Hill Video switcher and a part of the RCA Audio Console
This is Control Room A	Jeff was the Chief Engineer when I first started hanging around the department.	Studio "A" and the TK-42s in their normal looking condition -- broken.	A little glimpse of the telecine chains.  I don't know any of these people.
A little glimpse of an RCA TRT-1b on the left and an RCA TR22 low band color VTR.	An RCA TR-2 and a TRT-1b.	The "crawl camera" on the left and both of our TK-22 telecine camera with a TP-66 projector.	An RCA TR-22, TR-2 and a TRT-1B.  That's a TK1 B&W Telecine in the foreground.
A good shot of our two TR-22 Low Band Color VTRs.  In the center, a work area and Camera Control for the TK-60s and the TK-42s.	The other end of the room.  Thats a TK11, probably having all of its tubes checked.  In the background are the clocks and the guts of the production video switchers.