On May 1^st RBTV attended the Chicagoland Television Educators Council (CTEC) Video Festival and walked away with some hardware. Eight of their original programs won an award with the big award going to Sophomores George Suchy and Colton Arnold’s “Late Hour” taking 1^st place in the talk show category. RBTV also had many 2^nd place finishes including Sophomores Dan Pignato and Nick Anderson in the Training Category with the cooking show “Cook This” and Senior Bryan Smaller in the Movie Trailer category “Rewind”.

RBTV also did well in the PSA category. Senior Jette Pleasant took 2^nd with “Breathe”, Smaller and Senior Ryan Chodora took 3^rd place, and Senior Max Weiss took 5^th place. The Smaller and Senior Jackie Glosniak led RB 16 News also took 3^rd place in the news program category.

Broadcast Journalism teacher Patty Sarkady was very pleased with RBTV’s success.

“We had stiff competition this year because more schools were competing. This is the best we’ve done since we started participating with the awards. We were very pleased with the results, but more importantly proud of the students,” Sarkady said.

Sarkady, who runs RB 16 News, was particularly proud of the news show.

“We (RB 16 News) haven’t placed since 2007, but we had a solid team this year. News is always the toughest category because we only submit one show where for other categories we had multiple shows in the running. We are really honored to place this year.” Sarkady said. 

Besides for the CTEC Video Festival, RBTV, specifically Pleasant, also had success at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Chicago/Midwest Chapter awards. She received two Crystal Pillar awards. One of the awards was in the Long Form category (nonfiction) for her documentary “Whisper of the Woods”. The other award was in the Writing category for the script of a different documentary “Adventures Abroad”.

This is the ninth award for Pleasant and her third Crystal Pillar. Although she has also won several CTEC awards, the Crystal Pillars are more meaningful.

“Crystal Pillars are the biggest television awards there are at the high school level, so it was a big honor to win two in one year,” Pleasant said.

Pleasant is also proud to have won awards for both her documentary itself as well as her writing.

“It was amazing to be awarded in both categories because they represent very different areas of TV.” she said.

With eight different shows winning awards, this is the most successful year for RBTV ever at the CTEC Video Festival. With two first place awards at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Chicago/Midwest Chapter awards, this is the most successful they have ever been.