KUED's Jackson Hole and Battalion Documentaries Win Gold and Silver Awards

Congrats to my KUED and Media Solutions colleagues for winning Gold and Silver in the best television documentary division of the Utah Broadcasters Awards.

• Gold Award: The Jackson Hole Story with producer/director/editor Joey Prokop; writer Heidi Prokop; videographers Gary Turnier and Dan Schaerrer; and Kevin Sweet, William Montoya and William Gordon for location and post-production audio.
• Silver Award: Battalion with producer/writer Ken Verdoia; producer/editor Nancy Green; and photography by Gary Turnier.

It's cool to have even a small part in an award-winning production and thanks to Ken I got to portray the voice of William Hyde who wrote in his journal of thirst, swimming an icy stream, and the deaths of his fellow soliders:

"He (Sam Boley) was taken sick soon after he left the camp of the saints, and I tried to prevail upon him to abandon the idea of trying to perform the expedition, but his desires were so great to continue with the company that I submitted. He was buried Thursday, the 23rd at ten minutes before seven in the morning."

"At six o'clock p.m. brother Alva Phelps died and was buried at six o'clcok in the morning of the 17th. Brother Phelps suffered much from the poisonous effects of calomel, which without a doubt, was the cause of his death."

Walking 70 miles without water. (And I hesitate to mountainbike virtually any distance without a CamelBak full of cold water.)

"The distance that we traveled without water was not less than seventy miles across a barren desert. After we were encamped, the Colonel sais that he believed that any other company under like circumstances would have mutinized. He further stated that had he known the situation of the desert we had just crorssed, he would not have come onto it on any account."

A death and birth in his own family:

"I received letters at this place from my family, which brought me the sad news of the death of my only sister. She died in Council Bluffs after a lingering sickness which was caused by exposure. At this place of encampment, I also received the news of the birth of my son, William."

And upon his return journey the need to swim across an ice-filled river:

"The last stream I had to swim a part of the distance. The water was extremely cold with much ice running. Some thought it best to send two men on two of the bvest mules in camp for winter quarters. To this I replied that we had now traveked near five thousand miles, and that we had suffered much with hunger, thirst and fatigue, and now to give out on the last hundred miles I didn't like the idea."