Vintage Videos

From 1986 to 89 I worked at KELO - TV in South Dakota when we moved to Wisconsin for a job with WISC-TV where I was the Rock County Bureau reporter until 1992.

Here are some of my favorite stories (most recent video at the top):

In this episode of Vintage Video, you won't hear a lot of me as it is mostly natural sound and music to tell the stories.

Here is a look at service dogs, potato chips, and an historic mill on the brink of collapse.

The final South Dakota stories begin with a Chinese delegation visiting the Rosebud Reservation; small town celebrations; and a very tiny town trying to stay on the map.

The Wisconsin Grab Bag includes some of the more serious stories I was assigned while in the Rock County including toxic well water, a hate group rally, and a marijuana harvest.

We start in Janesville, Wisconsin where local members of the Audubon Society sought to reclaim 10 acres of the city which was essentially a wasteland. I returned to the area in 2015 and learned the dreams you’ll hear about in this story did come true.

The first of two video packages with a variety of stories from my time in South Dakota.

This episode takes a look at some of the holiday stories I produced while working in South Dakota.  The Capitol became a forest each December with a rotunda featuring a 35-foot pine and the extending hallways filled with decorated evergreens.

I arrived in South Dakota three year before the state celebrated its 100th birthday which gave me the opportunity to cover some of the celebrations and detail some of its history.  Here's a look at some South Dakota's first 100 years.

School stories didn't always take place in the classroom.  There were a variety of related stories outside those four walls that showed different ways kids were making a difference or taking a different approach to learning.

I did a lot of school-related stories because community schools are the source of important news and also a source for human-interest pieces.

General Motors was the economic engine of Janesville Wisconsin for nearly a century. As the Rock County Reporter for WISC from 1989 to 1992, it was the subject of many stories and the unseen force behind others. Here's a few of them.

This episode looks at different aspects of farming. We start with a visit to a South Dakota farm deciding to raise Ostriches then a visit to some bee hives; followed by stops in potato and sunflower fields. Two farming issues follow then we conclude with harvests of two very different cash crops.

These stories take place on, in, or around the water... whether it's the Missouri River which cuts South Dakota into East and West river or the rivers and lakes of Wisconsin... we look at how we celebrate with water; use it; and make history.

A collection of stories featuring horses. A horse in a cow pasture; horses pulling wagons; providing therapy; and delivering the mail plus more in this episode of Vintage Video.

This video looks at a variety of stories with a military theme starting with the deployment of a Wisconsin National Guard unit during Operation Desert Storm and concluding with a military burial for a Civil War Veteran decades after he was buried in an unmarked grave. Included among the stories are comrades coming together to help a comrade who died in a farm accident; National Guard officers learning to speak the language of their allies; and a story with five recipients of the Medal of Honor.

Since I work in a retirement community, it's interesting to look at this collection of stories celebrating older adults.  A pie-maker, bus driver, flying funeral home director, and a 90-year old salesman all demonstrate there can be good-living at every age.

Some of the best stories I did involved water... including these three rides on the rivers Rock, Missouri, and Niobrara.  The third story on this episode, Canoeing the Niobrara is my all-time favorite.

This video was the second one released, but I failed to put it on this compilation page - it looks at classic cars.  First a Model A, then a lot of classics at the Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo, South Dakota which is a popular tourist attraction.

I met a lot of interesting people while working as a reporter - here's a look at some of the most fascinating:

This episode looks at 'live shots' and an odd story among other things:

Here are three stories about birds of the air:

    A look at various art through the eye of my camera:

Here's a collection of 10 features stories - 5 each from South Dakota and Madison:

A collection of weather stories that ran on the evening news in Sioux Falls or Madison:

The second episode of the series is all about Classic Cars.  We start in Gregory, South Dakota where we meet a man who restored the same model he drove to school; then head to a place with hundreds of dream cars on display, the Pioneer Auto Museum.

The first video in the Vintage Video mini-series starts with a look at my brief career as a TV news reporter-photographer after graduating from Drake University. In 1988, I did a story on a cattle drive trial run for the big event the next year for South Dakota's 100th anniversary.