When The Weather Channel Came to Town

By Hannah Blackwell

          Football, the great American pastime, has brought our small town together on Friday nights for decades.  The boys that make up the Huron High School Football Team put hard work and dedication into the sport so that they can continue to make Huron proud.  Yet, who would have guessed that the team’s success and our little piece of paradise on the lake could catch the attention of Senior Producer of special projects for The Weather Channel, Mike Jenkins?  Early this week, Huron High School Athletic Director, Steve Camella, was notified that The Weather Channel was working on a segment called “12 Weeks, 12 Towns” and that they wanted to include Huron in the mix.  Jenkins and a camera crew of one rolled into town late Thursday afternoon to catch the Thursday night football practice with a drone camera.  They were also able to capture footage of the team members putting the “H” on their helmets for Friday night’s big game.  The segment for which Jenkins is traveling across the country is not just about small-town football programs, but about “getting into Middle America and telling the stories so the rest of America knows what you have; your hidden jewel.”  Huron was picked for the segment purely based on research with keywords such as “small town,” “community,” and “football.”  Jenkins and his team wanted to capture what makes Huron such a great place in the three-minute segment that will air throughout the day on The Weather Channel on Friday, September 5.  He explained that the segment “is not about the Friday nights; it’s about what the Friday nights mean to the community.”  Huron has something special, and this will be broadcast to the world next Friday.