One of our neat little Newswatch 16 features, from time to time, is Video Vault. We go back in to the archives and pull out a story we did years ago, with some relevance to today. As you saw in this space Monday, it was the 25th anniversary of the coldest day on record at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport. Before my shift was over Monday, I reminded managers and the 7 PM producer that I did a story on the tenth anniversary of that frigid day. If time allowed, it would make for a great Video Vault.
Yes, that's a a screen grab of me above, shot in 2004. Was my hair ever that dark?
As I noted on Facebook this week, when the story originally aired, I didn't like it. It wasn't a grabber. It was missing something. To refresh, I dug into the WNEP 1994 archives and attempted to catch up with people we covered. I found a few, including a heating oil company worker and a letter carrier with a frostbitten finger. A PPL executive and morning meteorologist Mark Sowers rounded out the piece.
As I watched the video again this week, I realized it was a pretty good story, and I was very hard on myself way back when. A little humor, a little information, a lot of good video, and some nice editing from now retired WNEP photographer Tom Hovey.
We received an e-mail the day after the Video Vault aired. It was from the daughter of the heating oil company worker. He passed away a year after the 10th anniversary piece. She enjoyed hearing and seeing her dad again. The e-mail made my day.
As I have said before, we parachute in to people's lives-- sometimes, on great days for them. At other times, it's an awful day. And then, we're gone. It's nice to catch up and relive some memories.
