Jakob Miskell earns AV All-Star honor from Midwest Regional Emmys Foundation
Bloomington Education Channel, BEC-TV, continues to bring home awards for its student-led sports programming.
BEC-TV, led by longtime advisor Tom Ringdal, brought home a pair of Crystal Pillar Awards from the 13th annual Upper Midwest Emmy Foundation’s Student Production Awards for its weekly football coaches show, Inside Jefferson Football and another award in the High School Live Sporting Event/Game for its production work during the Boys’ Hockey broadcast of the Kennedy/Jefferson game.
Inside Jefferson Football was named the top Sports Program in the High School division for the third time since 2019.
Ringdal explained that to qualify for the award, the students are entirely responsible for the production without help from teachers or advisors to bring the broadcast to the viewer.
“Each production has different kids, so we wanted to grab a representative of the whole group. Their names might not be on the award itself, but it is a team award,” Ringdal said. “We get a really good mix of kids from those who are just getting into it and others who are deep into it. It’s a variety of experience levels from middle schoolers to seniors.”
What continues to impress Ringdal is the interest of the youngest students to be involved as young as middle school – sixth to eighth grade. “Once they are seniors, they have been around the block a few times while some are brand new,” he said of the range of ages/experience runs the gamut. “We are the only ones winning awards with seventh and eighth graders, which we are proud of.”
Asher Barrett produced, directed, and recorded the audio for Inside Jefferson Football, while Jakob Miskell created the video, cameras, and graphics.
For the hockey broadcast, Miskell was the producer/director while Barrett did the graphics/audio; Sofia Pehrson was in charge of the replays and camera operators included Adam Rich, Leland Hauer and Andy Moen.
The boys’ hockey production shared the top honor with Moorhead High School.
Paul Fourniea served as the advisor on both broadcasts.
Miskell recognized
Miskell, a 2024 Kennedy High School graduate, was honored as an AV All-Star by the Upper Midwest Emmy Foundation for his dedication and expertise to BEC-TV.
As for Miskell’s individual honor, Ringdal says advisors are encouraged to nominate those “you lean on. They are your go-to person, reliable, and when something breaks down, they can get it.”
This marks Bloomington’s fourth individual award recipient over the last five years, starting with Zach Vacura in 2020, Andrew Grund in 2021-22 (combined awards due to the pandemic), and Malachi Martichuski in 2023.
Ringdal added: “Most programs have someone like that, and BEC always has; we’ve been very fortunate because we are a district-level program with kids coming from across the city. We have kids from Jefferson who cover Kennedy programs, and Kennedy kids cover Jefferson programs. It’s really agnostic; we don’t draw lines or boundaries. For example, we have Jefferson marching band kids covering Kennedy football games.”
What makes the individual award even more remarkable is that the individual award goes to students from across the five-state midwest. “It speaks to the level of commitment we have in Bloomington,” Ringdal said about the 10th year they submitted entries for these awards. “When we fill out the nomination forms, we have 100s of shows they have done in every setting possible across the six with six different production systems (truck, high schools and middle schools), and they have to know how to run that stuff.
“Part of what this means is that if they chose to move on to college, they are going to be miles in front of their peers with the experience because (Somebody) was put in charge of things.”
The prestigious award goes to one high school and one college student.
As for Miskell in particular, Ringdal said his contribution stands out as a senior who only started with the crew as a sophomore but soaked up the knowledge quickly.
Miskell said the nomination for the AV All-Star award was surreal. He didn’t know the honor was possible, and the possibilities were even fewer given his relatively little background experience. “Most of our techs joined in middle school, and I didn’t start until late in my sophomore year,” Miskell said. “I’ve learned a ton even in that short amount of time, which I am really proud of.”
He was part of both award-winning productions, including being a student producer for the boys’ hockey broadcast.
“The student producer manages the production, assigning positions, taking charge during set-up and strike to make sure everything goes smoothly,” he said while the added pressure of being the annual “Battle of Bloomington” game.
“That game is the most anticipated game of the season, so it’s especially important that we have a great production for everyone at home, and it’s awesome that I was able to help run it.”
“He is on every shoot for us,” Ringdal said. “I just got off the phone with him planning the week because he has Prom on Friday and is helping us shoot an event on Saturday. He’ll be at Prom until 3 a.m., then pick up the gear for a synchronized swimming event at Oak Grove Saturday morning.”
“He has become indispensable for us and loves it. He’s good at connecting with all the young and old kids. Everyone loves him. He’s giving and kind, and when he leads, he does it with a gentle hand.”
The Saturday synchro event was the first single-camera event of the season, with Miskell raising his hand to step in when no one else came to help. Ringdal added: “He says, ‘I’ll do it.’”
Learning the nuances of what goes into turning an event into a production requires a whole host of factors to move in sync. It takes time to develop the skills necessary to manage the various components of a production, and it all takes time and energy outside of the school day.
Miskell started making films at a young age and didn’t consider it more than a hobby until speaking with Ringdal two years ago.
“I figured I would give it a shot,” Miskell said. “It was fun to use high-end camera gear that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to as a high school student; everyone was very welcoming.”
He has always found new ways to challenge himself and will carry that into whatever is next. TV production and astronomy are two passions for Miskell, and even if neither turns into a career, he knows both will continue to be a big part of his life. He plans to continue his education at Normandale Community College.
As for his top memories with BEC-TV, Miskell said they came from challenging shoots at first but then turned out great, “thanks to all of the passionate techs there who put in the work, and it pays off,” he said.
One of those top memories came during a downpour at a football game as the crew stuck with it and had to wipe off the camera lenses every minute or so.
The other was the Red Carpet program during Prom this spring at Mall of America.
“We stepped up our production this year and got to try many new things because of it,” he explained. “We got shots of a limo outside of the mall, we got shots of students on rides at Nickelodeon Universe, and we had a reporter go around and interview students. We know from families that the prom productions are some of the most watched all year, so it’s cool to see that we were able to step it up this year to bring them such a great show.”
A team effort
Ringdal explained that the regular curriculum during the school day doesn’t include much in television production except for a news show at Jefferson High School, a relaunched school news program at Kennedy, “Eastside Edition,” and a live daily output at Oak Grove Middle School.
In a press release announcing the 2023 awards, the school district said, “BEC-TV programs are aired on local cable channels and streamed online, providing real-world production experience for students while offering quality content.”
Each year, BEC-TV enters production in the live sports production they have won, a feat that makes Ringdal proud of all they accomplish.
“We cover all of the sports, and this year, I think we were the only ones covering badminton,” Ringdal said as the Kennedy Badminton program was featured this spring.
The crew size varies with each event, ranging from 2-3 students for a studio production to more than 20 students for the entire football production. “To make it happen,” Ringdal said.
The schedule for those Friday Night football shows begins soon after school dismissal with a pre-production meeting, a potluck meal under the bleachers at Bloomington Stadium and the production, which means the crew typically wraps up around midnight each week.
“We all work hard at it and do a post-mortem after each production to look strongly at what went well, what we need to improve and how we can build it together as a team next time,” Ringdal said. “It’s a bit like coaching where we always analyze what is going well. A win for us is a positive tension between putting out a really good production and building excellent student techs, and that means you cannot put the best kids out there all the time, but you find that spot where you put on a good show but learn something in the development of their skills.”
Being a student-based production is what Ringdal is most proud of. “To be eligible for these awards, no adults can be hands-on at all,” he said. “A lot of times, we advise, and we can show them how to do it, but they are the ones doing it all in the actual production.”
Ringdal came to Bloomington in 1979 and became a full-time employee in 1982. Community access television in Bloomington began in 1974 under the guidance of Jefferson’s media director, Byron Bekiares, who recently passed away.
Ringdal learned about television production with the black and white, monochromatic gear, some of which he still has tucked away in the Valley View Middle School production studio. BEC-TV has archives from 1974, many of which can be seen through BEC-TV.org. “We’ve been streaming longer than anyone else in the state, about 15 years,” Ringdal said.
Recruiting continues to be exciting, with an enthusiastic group typically showing up for the introductory meetings. The first productions usually have a strong turnout, but keeping that momentum is challenging. “We lose a lot of them by that second step, to keep them coming back, which is broadly true among kids and adults,” Ringdal said. “Right now, 69 kids say they want to be a part of this and help. They all get an invite to help, and tomorrow night is a baseball game. We will typically have 20-25 students who are there regularly.
Josh Powers
Josh Powers, who has worked as the play-by-play broadcaster for over two decades, is the voice and face of many productions each school year. A University of Minnesota and Jefferson alum, Powers also serves as the voice of St. Olaf College hockey broadcasts and is the announcer for the University of Minnesota marching band.
“Josh grew up in Bloomington and had a big heart for it,” Ringdal said. “He’s been around a lot, and we are blessed to have him because he knows the teams inside and out.”
Powers is recognized as one of the top voices in college hockey, confirmed by three consecutive final four appearances in an @D-IIIHockeyNews’ “Broadcaster Bracket” unscientific poll on X (formerly known as Twitter). He made the finals the last two years with some emphatic calls that caught the attention of sports fans.
Ringdal said the spark for creating the weekly football show came from former Jefferson Football head coach Tim Carlson, who approached Ringdal about what was possible.
“Tim’s been so good to us and is a huge backer of us,” Ringdal said. “He does a great job of bringing in affiliated people from outside the actual football portion of the team to be included from the cheerleaders, marching band and alumni through a ‘Where are they now’ segment.”
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