Nine USU students receive Emmy Award nominations
By Alison Berg
Brian Champagne’s face lit up when he received news that eight of his students are nominated for collegiate Emmy Awards delivered by the Rocky Mountain Region of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the highest number of nominees Champagne has seen in his eight years of teaching at Utah State University.
“I knew we had good stuff going in, but that really blew me away,” said Champagne, an associate professor of journalism and communication.
Taylor Emerson, a USU senior, and Erin Cox, a 2018 USU graduate, both received nominations for two stories they did for Aggie TV News, while three students from Champagne’s course on documentaries received nominations. A special episode of Aggie TV News was also nominated and a video sponsored by the English department took the final slot.
The Rocky Mountain Region includes Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and part of California, which, Emerson said, includes tough competition.
“To go against (the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism), to go against BYU, to go against these schools that have bigger budgets and more resources than we do, individually it’s great, but it really shows the strength of not just that group but the journalism program,” he said.
Cox received her nominations for a feature story she did on the First Presbyterian Church of Logan’s handbell choir, as well as a series of stories reporting on sexual assault at USU. Emerson earned his nominations for a sports segment he did and a story on a man who makes surfboards in his backyard. Lindsay Sousa, a student from the documentary class, earned her spot for non-fiction documentary about the beast rumored to live in Bear Lake while Sousa’s classmate Austin Elder received a nomination for a documentary on the Navajo Nation. Ethan Smith is a nominee for a piece titled “Delwyn Builds,” and Cache Rendezvous, a segment of Aggie-TV, won for an entire show.
Students producing Aggie-TV do so for a three-hours-per-day, four-days-a-week class called newscast, taught by Associate Professor Brian Champagne and Practical Practice Assistant Professor Chris Garff.
Though the students do all recording, writing and production of the show themselves, many attributed part of their success to Champagne and Garff.
“I think what Brian Champagne and Chis Garff taught me the most was to do my best in everything I did and to get it perfect,” said Cox, who is now a reporter at Fox 13 news. “Behind every successful student is teachers that worked twice as hard to get them there.”
Emerson agreed, adding “they will be there every time you need them, when you need them.”
Though Cox acknowledges the honor in receiving the nomination, winning an award was never at the forefront of her mind.
“We, as journalists don’t do our stories for nominations, that’s not why we do them, but it feels good when you get it,” she said.
Seven Aggie TV students won Emmy Awards in 2016, the first round of students to win since Champagne has taught at USU.
Award winners will be announced Sept. 22 at a gala in Phoenix.
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