KCBY-TV takes home second Best Newscast Emmy Award
Coppell High School 2019 graduates Vinny Vicenzo, Shania Khan and Misuni Khamankar discuss upcoming projects in KCBY adviser Irma Kennedy’s classroom on Oct. 19, 2018. KCBY was awarded the 2020 National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Student Production Emmy for Best Newscast.
March 1, 2021
In her 15 years leading KCBY-TV, adviser Irma Kennedy has found that by midyear, she could tell whether that year’s staff will make it in award season or not. And in 2018-19, it had been decided early on that it was a “not.”
Two weeks ago, she couldn’t have been more happy to be proven wrong.
“We had lots of newsroom drama,” Kennedy said. “We struggled with a [National Scholastic Press Association Broadcast] Pacemaker that year, even putting together a senior show. The most successful years we’ve had have been the ones where the executive leadership team can put aside personal challenges. They set a codeword that whatever was going on, they would say that word and remember what the goal was; we didn’t have that [in the 2018-19 staff]. That makes it an even more special story to me now: that we overcame.”
Though only one member of the team who worked on KCBY’s 2018-19 Show 25, CHS 2019 graduate Fernando Cornejo, was in the room at the time of announcement, the group’s current leadership team exploded as the program was awarded the 2020 National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Student Production Emmy Best Newscast for their show created almost two years ago. For the second time, the program has been named the best newscast in the country.
“We poured our everything into that show,” 2019 Coppell High School graduate and former KCBY program director Vinny Vincenzo said. “Countless late nights and hours at the high school, long meetings, exporting the same thing 50 times and so much effort.”
According to Kennedy, the staff’s personal problems fizzled out early on, leaving only drive in the staff.
“Those seniors that were working on this show really did feed off of each other,” Kennedy said. “[2019 Coppell High School graduate and former KCBY program director] Shania Khan worked her butt off. [2019 Coppell High School graduate and former KCBY senior producer] Maddie Hulcy was a tremendous writer and great producer. [2019 Coppell High School graduate and former KCBY program director] Landon Flesher [was] Mr. Innovation himself and Mr. Technogeek. They all loved to challenge themselves and push the envelope.”
Two years after its creation, the award takes on a new meaning for both those who worked on it and those who hope their current work will match it.
“It’s crazy that we’re in college right now, in our apartments, and we just received an award from high school, and it’s also a huge honor,” Flesher said.
For KCBY’s current senior leadership, most of whom were sophomores on staff while the winning show was being created, the program’s second Student Production Emmy serves as new motivation.
“It really told us, ‘this could be you’ and we saw that year’s team work so hard, so we know it takes a lot of hard work,” KCBY senior technical director Mark Santuae said. “We’re willing to do it.”
Both KCBY and KCBY Español were nominated for Best Newscast at the national level after Coppell High School took home four awards for their program at the Lone Star EMMYs last year.
Kennedy selected Show 25 for award submissions for its coverage of issues beyond Coppell, particularly Beto O’Rourke’s rally in Austin and its focus on state politics.
“What that show proved to our team was that we needed to get out of just our community and tell stories that are relevant nationally,” Kennedy said. “[O’Rourke] came to Austin and my kids were like, ‘we’re going to Austin’, and that energy became contagious. When the show consistently demonstrates the reach that you are giving to what’s happening and what’s relevant to our community as well as our state, it really makes a difference.”
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