Stewart and I were dispatched to New Market Elementary School after a rushed lunch on Friday on what had been a simple VoSot assignment for just me.
The VoSot being just a 30 second clip and one quick sound byte wasn't enough, however, for my Camera Totin' comrade when his other story for the day fell through.
So there we were at New Market Elementary School in Sophia, under the watchful eye of our broadcast tower, to get a glimpse of a patriotic ceremony that was a made for pictures event.
The students wore their red, white and blue according to class and teacher and lined up in front of the Gymatorium forming the stars and stripes making a human flag.
I came along on my original assignment to help Stewart out by getting the birds eye view of the spectacle. I extended the 7 sections of air compressed aluminum to it's full erect position of 60 foot. The videocamera on top took in the site as I recorded it onto a portable record deck.
But I wanted a shot of the kids with my XDCam so I decided to join the teachers on the roof of the gym.
I hiked to the roof access ladder at the opposite end of the school and walked the rooftop back to the gym. After climbing a second ladder I was on top of the situation at the school's highest level.
Unfortunately, I didn't notice that the camera battery I had just popped onto my XD while at the truck was a DEAD one. I was done, no video from the Gymtop view. All that walking for naught!
Back on the ground Stewart had roamed and rolled and gathered sound enough from all the stars and stripes to make a nice little natsound package about why they formed the human flag.
They had invited the veteran color guard and released US Flag Balloons to make it a ceremony and after some pomp and circumstance, all the boys and girls lined up to shake the soldiers hands.
It was then that the teacher who set all this up, said those stirring words.
"These Students are touching freedom."
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