BULLHEAD CITY – With the cut of two ribbons and the punch of a button, the Colorado River Union High School District has launched an educational television station available to Suddenlink customers in Bullhead City, Ft. Mohave and Mohave Valley. CRUHSD-TV secured an open channel which had been set aside for non-commercial educational cable origination programming.
“We have a vision – a vision of cross-curriculum and a community culture of learning,” said Gina Covert, CRUHSD’s director of career and technical education (CTE), in a ceremony carried live on Suddenlink Channel 13. “This component is our next level of creating that community culture. We hope that the education channel will be educational for both our students and our community.”
CRUHSD-TV will phase in public affairs programs, campus news, interviews, community information, public service announcements, classroom instruction and governing board meetings. Mohave and River Valley High School football games, as well as news from Mohave Community College, have been part of the beta testing, and will continue. Other live and tape-delayed athletic events will be added, as will items of interest to CRUHSD’s “feeder” public school districts. As an educational lab, CRUHSD-TV is not designed to compete with any existing commercial or non-commercial broadcast, print or online organization. The station will have faculty and staff oversight, including from industry professionals.
Government, academic, community and business leaders participated in a joint ribbon cutting hosted by the Bullhead Area and Laughlin Chambers of Commerce. Shortly thereafter, a control room button was pushed and CRUHSD-TV was officially launched.
CRUHSD’s Anderson Auto Group Fieldhouse was selected for the ceremony because the master control facility for CRUHSD-TV is located in the Fieldhouse broadcast booth, and training is part of the Fieldhouse’s ongoing educational mission. Both Mohave and River Valley have separate TV studios, and will originate programming.
The around-the-clock station will begin each broadcast day with the Star Spangled Banner at 6:00 a.m., followed by America at noon and America the Beautiful at 6:00 p.m., recorded by Mohave High School’s Mystic Rhythm choir.
Covert noted the resilience of students involved both in front of and behind the camera.
“When COVID-19 hit last (school) year, our student journalists who were busy learning how to do their first daily or weekly TV broadcasts went home and figured out how to do it from their bedrooms, their kitchens, their living rooms, via Zoom, with a technology expert somewhere,” she added. “And they continued to broadcast to their classmates as frequently as they could.” Covert said that helped students learn to be more savvy and flexible, skills necessary for life after high school.
