VoV High School Mentoring Program

Voice of Vashon has realized another long-held dream – succession. We are doing that in collaboration with faculty and students at Vashon High School to bring talented young people into the VoV fold.

During the past year, VoV volunteer Dan Schueler, has produced over 40 live VHS sports broadcasts online and on KVSH-FM. Working with color commentators John Yates, Kevin Linnell, Don Amick and David Leonhardt, Dan and other volunteers managed to provide basketball and soccer broadcasts on their own. Then last summer, VHS Network Administrator John Stanton joined the team and brought in VHS graduate Sean Yeoell to act as coordinator for the VoV student mentoring program.

That move ignited a blossoming partnership that now includes Vashon High School journalism instructor Steven Denlinger, his students and The Riptide staff in creating and recording a news and information program called Fresh Delivery 3 times a week.

John Stanton says “The VHS-VOV program started in the Fall of 2014. Although it is in it’s infancy, students have already had several notable successes. Fresh Delivery, the broadcast version of the VHS newspaper The Riptide, has rapidly evolved into a polished and progressive 15 minute radio show.”

With each Riptide publication, Emalia Hinden, Fresh Delivery News Director, and Sophie Harrison, Editor-in-chief of The Riptide, join forces to map out the next Fresh Delivery episode. They work with their student colleagues to write and produce each story, applying various voices, games, poetry and music to the show. Then student audio engineers, Jacob Danielsen and Aeryn Johns edit and finalize the program for broadcast on KVSH.

“Recruitment and training of volunteer student engineers is another notable success of the Vashon Island School District partnership with VOV. Students undergo several hours of technical training at the VOV studios. Students master the software and hardware required to run a modern radio station. After that they help with a variety of tasks, including editing Fresh Delivery, readying past VOV content for on-demand streaming, and running the VOV mixing board during Vashon High School sporting events. It is this last job which has allowed VOV to bring many more high school games to listeners of KVSH-LP on Vashon and beyond.” says VISD’s John Stanton.

The goal of this mentoring program is to attract more VHS students to radio and, eventually, TV production so that Voice of Vashon, KVSH-FM and VoV TV remain fresh and relevant to the entire Island community.

Fresh Delivery, VHS sports broadcasts and all VoV programs can be heard on KVSH 101.9 FM, on the free VoV app and at VoiceOfVashon.org.