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ETV Continues Golden Anniversary Celebration
with Special Two-Hour Live Studio Event

Wednesday, Dec. 9 at 7 p.m.

For Immediate Release
November 25, 2009

Columbia, SC… On Wednesday, Dec. 9, ETV continues its golden anniversary celebration with a special two-hour studio event beginning at 7 p.m. During the live broadcast, both past and present ETV stars will share their favorite memories and best moments from the past 50 years of broadcasting.

Among those who will be taking part in the celebration are:

• Rudy Mancke, host of "NatureScene"

• Beryl Dakers, host of many of ETV's arts and culture programs

• P.A. Bennett, host of "Connections"

• Mark Quinn, host of "The Big Picture"

• Linda Durant, who has hosted many shows during her long career, beginning with "Off the Cuff," ETV's first talk show

• Bette Jamison, who has hosted many K-12 programs, including "In Our Schools," and "Project Discovery"

• Rowland Alston, host of "Making It Grow!"

RARE VIDEO CLIPS

As part of this two-hour anniversary party, ETV will be reaching back into the vault with very rare video clips from it's early days, some of which haven't been broadcast in at least two decades, including:

• An excerpt from a broadcast that brought the Columbia City Ballet's performance of "Cinderella" to the rest of the nation

• A musical performance by Cheraw native Dizzy Gillespie in an unusual venue – a pool hall

• Excerpt from the beginnings of the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, featuring the operas "The Consul," "Vanessa" and comments from playwright Tennessee Williams

• Outtakes from "Columbo's" Peter Falk and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show's" Ted Baxter who came by the ETV studios to help tell the ETV story

• Jester Hairston conducting and teaching South Carolina students and teachers to sing a rousing rendition of his song, "Amen" on the ITV show "Time for Sounds"

• An exchange from the "Firing Line" debate between William F. Buckley, Jr. and then-governor of California Ronald Reagan

• An excerpt from ETV Radio's Peabody Award-winning "American Popular Song," with Alec Wilder, featuring a performance by Tony Bennett, singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"

• Another ETV Radio Peabody winner, Marian McPartland, host of "Piano Jazz," performs at the 1997 grand opening ceremony of ETV's Telecommunications Center in Columbia

• Excerpts from the classic children's show "Kukla, Fran and Ollie"

ETV AT 50: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY

Additionally, ETV will feature the 30-minute show, "ETV at 50: A Documentary History," which takes a look back at some of the signature shows and milestones that established ETV as one of the premiere public television and radio networks in the nation.

Starting off the program is the late Governor Robert McNair, who prior to becoming governor, served in the SC House of Representatives during the time that the "experiment in education" began in the late '50s.

In the 1988 interview, McNair reveals why the General Assembly decided to give educational television a try, saying, "It came about really as a result of what we called then Sputnik… There was a great fear in the country and really, rightfully so on science and mathematics and things. We just weren't doing an effective job in educating our children and bringing them along, and we needed to do something else."

The first two classes offered in the fall of 1958 were Geometry, taught by Cornelia Turnbull and French by Madame Lucille Turney-High. Students in technical director and future ETV president Henry Cauthen's television techniques class at Columbia's Dreher High School served as the cameramen, artists and technicians for the live broadcasts.

From these humble beginnings, ETV quickly grew into the statewide network, featuring educational programming for schools, as well as local and national programs that featured a "who's who" of the biggest names in politics and showbiz.

"ETV at 50: A Documentary History" is full of must-see vintage footage from such ETV productions as the Emmy Award-winning "Jobman Caravan" to "Reel Journeys with Christopher Reeve," to "Firing Line" with William F. Buckley, Jr.," and "NatureScene." And of course, then there are the children's shows that many South Carolinians of a certain age will remember fondly, including "The June Bugg Show," "Zee Cooking School," "Studio See," "Time for Sound," "Wheee!" and more.

The two-hour celebratory broadcast, along with the video excerpts and the 30-minute documentary, will show exactly how far ETV has come since its origins in a corner of the library at Dreher High School. Over the past half-century, ETV's local and national productions have covered everything from arts and culture, history and current affairs, politics and kid's programming--and so much more. But regardless of their subject matter, they all have one thing in common: They were produced to help us learn--about our state, about the world around us, and about ourselves.

South Carolina ETV is the state's public educational broadcasting network with 11 television and eight radio transmitters, and a multi-media educational system in more than 2,500 schools, colleges, businesses and government agencies. Using television, radio and the web, SCETV's mission is to enrich lives by educating children, informing and connecting citizens, celebrating our culture and environment and instilling the joy of learning.

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For more information, contact Rob Schaller at (803) 737-6556 or rschaller@scetv.org.