- #Wnep school closings for tomorrow Patch
- #Wnep school closings for tomorrow Pc
- #Wnep school closings for tomorrow tv
Maybe someone else had a similar program in 1983: I hadn’t heard of any commercially available. I can’t say who might have been working on a school closing program at the same time Frank Ivan was working on his for WNEP. Lots of people were working on the same idea at the same time. But so did Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis and Elisha Gray, among others. Now, remember: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. In cold-weather markets, lots of stations started using it. Next thing you know, anyone who had “NewStar” computers had access to a school closing program. They got Frank Ivan, his expertise, his vote tabulation program, and-as an extra added attraction-his school closing program. Of course it worked, and they came up with a deal for Frank. The idea was that if it worked and worked well during a real, live election, they’d put Frank on retainer and take his vote tabulation program nationwide. In November, 1986, the folks behind one of the first newsroom computer systems, “NewStar” came from Madison, Wisconsin to WNEP to watch Frank’s election program in use. What I do know is that word of Frank’s programming prowess spread. We were the first in the market.īut were we the first in the country? I honestly don’t know. Either way, it was child’s play (seemingly) for Frank Ivan, and by October, 1983 we were up and running. Was there any way we could jigger the program to put it to other uses?Įlden says that I came up with the idea of computerizing the school closings. Similar programs were cropping up around the country, but Frank's was a winner!īut election night came only twice a year.
#Wnep school closings for tomorrow tv
Ivan wrote one of the first TV station master control automation programs in the industry.Īt WNEP, Elden had Frank Ivan design a vote tabulation program that hooked up to a CG (“character generator”) to compute and display vote totals on election night. When he was EP at KXAS in Dallas, he hooked up with a computer programmer by the name of Frank Ivan. Then-WNEP VP and GM Elden Hale was/is a genius. I’m not sure about either claim, but here’s what I know. The school closings were displayed on the screen-in alphabetical order-on something we named the “Winterwatch Computer.” We were "Newswatch 16," and we had the "Spotrtswatch" and the "Weatherwatch." Creative, huh?Ī case can be made that WNEP was the first station in America to computerize school closings, and that I was the one behind it. One year later the slips of paper were gone and Frank was back to anchoring.
#Wnep school closings for tomorrow Patch
It was rotten TV, but what could be more important than keeping little Johnny from freezing to death at the bus stop, or little Suzy from getting killed when her school bus slides on a patch of “black ice” and winds up on its side in a ditch? God, it was boring, reading them over…and over…and over. During commercials and the weather forecast he did his best to alphabetize the mess. When I took over as News Director at WNEP, back in 1983, morning anchor Frank Andrews would sit at the anchor desk with slips of paper-a pile of slips of paper-and read off the closings and delays. I don’t have children, but I always check for the status of “S.
#Wnep school closings for tomorrow Pc
All over the area people are tuning to WNEP-TV to see if the “Winterwatch” computer has their kids’ school on the list although these days you can also check the “Winterwatch” on your PC or even have closings and delays sent straight to your cell phone. Snow, sleet and freezing rain have delayed or canceled classes in dozens of school districts. It’s another crummy December morning in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.
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