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Orca Live Celebrates 15 Years with Special Broadcast
June 11, 2019 – In honor of its 15th anniversary, past anchors from various years joined the current crew for a special broadcast of Orca Live—a unique, student-produced television news show at Orenco Elementary School. The show began in November 2004, thanks to the vision of teachers Tom Bunker and Mike Futter, the school’s principal, and generous grant funds from Intel and other sources. Throughout the years, Orca Live has received tremendous support from Orenco’s Booster Club, the Hillsboro Schools Foundation, Nike, Synopsys, and Orenco staff. Futter continues to lead the program at Orenco, and Bunker still helps out as a volunteer even though he retired in 2011. To learn more and to see pictures and a video clip of the special broadcast, click here; to watch other Orca Live videos, please visit the Orca Live page on Orenco’s website. Scroll down to see the video, photos and press release...
Orca Live Celebrates 15 Years
Student-produced television news show has provided hundreds of youth opportunities to get creative and learn new skills
June 7, 2019, Hillsboro, OR – Orenco Elementary School is proud to announce the 15th anniversary of Orca Live, its unique, student-produced television news show. To commemorate this momentous occasion, the school will air a special broadcast of the show on Tuesday, June 11, at 1:30 p.m. The broadcast will feature former crew members as anchors, clips from past seasons, and memories shared by Orca Live alumni.
The show began in November 2004, thanks to the vision of the school’s principal and generous grant funds from Intel and other sources. Throughout the years, Orca Live has received tremendous support from Orenco’s Booster Club, the Hillsboro Schools Foundation, Nike, Synopsys, and Orenco staff.
Students direct and anchor the broadcasts, work the mixer board, audio board, and camera for their shows, which air every other week. Typical broadcasts include a focus on grade‐level learning as well as photographs from throughout the school. Though the students have also tackled special projects like commercial parodies, detective dramas and silent films, among other things.
Participating in Orca Live has provided students with a very unique experience, taught them valuable technical skills, increased their public speaking ability, and overall has been a bright spot in their educational careers.
Media are welcome and invited to attend the ceremony.
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