Savidge is arriving on Thursday in time to critique the Athens MidDay newscast as well as speak in Prof. Yusuf Kalyango's TV reporting course. He'll speak the following morning to students in the JFreshmen Newsroom. He's also slated to host a media-related forum, to be aired on WOUB, as well as provide anchoring duties for WOUB Newswatch.

A Friday afternoon panel (2:30-4) features Guarino (a MDIA grad), as well as JSchool alumni Dan Dahlen (Nielsen IAG), Alan Miller (Columbus Dispatch), Stephanie Pavol (Lesic & Camper Communications), plus MDIA (formerly TCom) alum Shelli Dankoff (listen to the program).

On Saturday, the JSchool will host its annual Homecoming reception (11-12:30). All alumni are welcome to join us in the atrium of E.W. Scripps Hall.

Watch interviews with WOUB alumni (many of whom were JSchool students).

As a journalism student, Erica was in the News Writing and Editing sequence, but she now works for one of the main broadcast news organizations in the country. In this video she explains how she came to be "Editor" for digital news at NPR.

I've known Andy for many years, and had heard several legendary tales about his time as a student. I was determined to track him down on my recent trip to DC to ask him about some of these stories. What I learned about his experiences while a student at OU was far more compelling than even the legends. In the first video, Andy explains why he didn't spend as much time in the classroom as he should have (hint: The Post). He also describes his three international "internship" experiences, starting with the summer between his first and second year.

In this video, Andy describes his long-standing commitment to diversity in media.

In this final video, Alexander discusses his commitment to giving back to Ohio University.

A recent photo [added 9/14/10] of Garrett on set during a WEWS sports program.

Life in Cleveland for me is going well.... I've adjusted to the early hours (even though it still takes about three cups of coffee to wake up) and I'm getting the chance to do a number of different things.

My first month on the job, I was in the middle of our team's coverage on the LeBron James fiasco. It was a great way to get thrown to the wolves, and we ended up setting all kinds of traffic records for our site with that coverage. It was great to have a hand in that, and some of my work ended up getting picked up nationally. I couldn't believe it when I went on yahoo.com and my byline was the main story on the site!

Recently, I've been covering the Browns training camp and pre-season, and the plan is for me to continue covering the team for the website throughout the season. I definitely did not think I would be covering the NFL two months into my first job. Here's an article I wrote for our site.

Also, I am going to have a big role in high school football. I'm basically in charge of the web product for our high school football coverage, and I'm building relationships with local schools to have them send us video to put on our TV broadcasts, and online. As part of the high school coverage, I'm also going to get some on-air opportunities. If things go according to plan, then I should be making my Cleveland TV debut this weekend!

Life is great at Horse & Rider, and I’ve just finished my first big feature for our September issue.

In the month that I’ve been here, I’ve been given three departments to manage and at least one feature a month, plus I’m responsible for updating our Facebook with engaging posts 3-4 times every day. One of those departments is Western fashion, which is probably my favorite thing in the world next to barrel horses, so I couldn’t be more thrilled about that. On top of that, the managing editor and I get to go to horse shows and rodeos throughout the week if we see fit and shoot video and photos. We’ve never had staff videos before, so when I posted our first last week, it was a point of celebration for our staff. There will be many more to come, that’s for sure.

Just as I arrived last month, our company (Active Interest Media) launched a contest to see which group (the equine group, the healthy-living group, the outdoors group, etc.) could develop the most innovative iPad application. The group publisher selected one magazine within the equine group to write, design, and launch the prototype. Horse&Rider was picked, and so our three-person editorial staff is coming up with an iPad app for this contest. It’s a HUGE learning curve, but it’s really going to be something to put on the resume, and something that’s probably going to make the way we do web even better, too.

With our company also owning lots of related publications, our group publisher asked me this week to help him expand the barrel racing coverage on one of our sister magazines, Spin To Win Rodeo. This is going to be great, as Spin To Win is pretty much the top roping/rodeo magazine in the industry, and I used this magazine for part of my market review in my HTC scholarly essay that accompanied my professional project. (And that was just one year ago that Cary Frith and I were putting that analysis together... Funny how things change in a year.)

I found out I got the assistant editor job with Horse & Rider on Wednesday, April 21. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement. Phone call #1 went to Mom and Dad, of course, who were thrilled that I wouldn’t be living in their garage attic. Phone call #2, though, went to my horse trainer, Ginny. She’s been my mentor, my best friend, and my biggest (and sometimes, most critical) fan since I was 9-years-old with my terrible bucking little pony named Boogie. She couldn’t get over the fact that I’d be living our dream of going to out West (Boulder, Colo.) and taking my horses with me, not to mention I’d have access to industry professionals that we’d only dreamed of talking to just a day earlier.

The first week in May, I went home to say my “see-ya-laters” (goodbyes are way too permanent sounding) to my family and friends in Apollo and Vandergrift, Pa. Ginny’s was my first stop after saying ‘hi’ to Mom and Dad. Proudly, she brought out my graduation present from her bedroom (a silver bracelet with “Live the Life You Love” carved into it). She went back into her bedroom, though, just a moment later, and brought out a tattered magazine covered in dust. It’s cover read Horse&Rider, and it was dated April 1971. Slowly, she opened the delicate pages to a section titled Miss Western Life, and there, on a two-page spread, was an 18-year-old Ginny, in her Appaloosa National Horsemanship Queen crown, aboard her old show horse. Somehow she had been chosen by Horse&Rider as Miss Western Life some 39 years ago.

When I left home, Ginny and I both shed some tears, but I just kept thinking about how she’s taken me full circle, honing my riding and horsemanship skills to such a fine point that I could get a job with the same magazine that recognized her decades ago for the exact same thing.