School board ponders time of meetings

McCOOK, Neb. — Should McCook School Board meetings start earlier? Or later?

It was an idea brought up by McCook School Board member Tom Bredvick, as a way to get more patrons to attend the meetings.

“I’m not saying we should or shouldn’t,” Bredvick said at Monday’s school board meeting, but maybe a different time would allow more citizens to attend a meeting. He asked fellow board members to ask around and see what people wanted and maybe the board could revisit the issue at a later date.

Also at Monday’s meeting, a presentation was made on McCook Bison TV by Ben Vetrosky, business/technology teacher at McCook High School, along with students Kysen Barger and Lucas Gomez Wilson.

The television production class broadcasts events at the high school and also puts together snippets for the video screens in the gym that are viewed during basketball and other sports. They can live stream any event that takes place indoors, with 38 events broadcast in 2022 that garnered over 11,000 views

Students with recreational licenses can also use drone footage of events and starting this week, the school will broadcast podcasts, that will preview upcoming events and re-cap previous events, like cross-country meets or football.

Vetrovsky thanked the board for the remodel of the room last year, which included a huge green screen. A green screen allows students to create virtual backgrounds or add special effects and the new screen is almost twice as large as what students used before.

The new soundboard the students use is the same one used by commercial radio stations, Vetrovsky said. Class size has jumped from eight last year to 18 this year and is still growing, he said, with two classes of TV production. Board member Tom Bredvick said he liked how the skills learned in this class could transfer immediately to jobs in the broadcast industry.