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Ashland - Local Town Pages

Ashland’s WACA-TV Wins Five Hometown Media Awards

Aug 02, 2021 10:07AM ● By Chuck Tashjian

The Ashland High School Student Council Executive Board, 2020-21, produced the award-winning Virtual Pep Rally. Left to right: Brady McGuire (‘22), Keira Joshi (‘23), Kaitlin Merson (‘21), Nayonika Singh (‘22), and Ella Fong (‘23). (Photo/supplied)

WACA-TV received five 2021 Hometown Media Awards in June from the Alliance for Community Media (ACM) Foundation. The awards program was established to honor and promote community media, community radio, and local cable programs that are distributed on Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) access cable television channels.
Each year, nearly 1,000 entries, or programs, are submitted. These entries are evaluated by a panel of judges from the industry resulting in over 100 award winners. Awards are presented to the most creative programs that address community needs, develop diverse community involvement, challenge conventional commercial television formats and move viewers to experience television in a different way.
WACA’s five winning entries are:
Beacon Hill Briefings produced during the pandemic by State Representative Jack Lewis and Connor Donovan. WACA chose this compilation because it highlighted pertinent information to get out to the Representative’s constituents. https://vimeo.com/516419119
Spiritual Guidance for Daily Living produced by Rev. Carolyn McGee, an Angelic Life Coach, and Alison Rose. This program was designed to help viewers through the difficult days of 2020. https://vimeo.com/438362900
Behind the Curtain Compilation. WACA partners with Ashland Community Theater. This program is produced by Joe White and showcases the work of the local theater company. Due to the pandemic, the company did some creative work over the zoom platform. Here is a sampling of three episodes: Pandemic Music, ER Visit, an original short film, and the Santa Claus Chronicles: https://vimeo.com/502287658
Ashland High School Virtual Pep Rally produced by Joshua Wiczer, the Ashland High School Student Council, and Alison Rose. Due to the pandemic and the high school mostly in remote learning, the Student Council took to a more creative way to celebrate their annual fall pep rally. https://youtu.be/ZMyphvRnZ94
Together at Home — We Stand Against Racism. In light of the events during 2020 and the Black Lives Matters Movement, the Ashland community gathered together by sharing photos celebrating standing together as a community. https://youtu.be/dj8yhZsfBJk
“The Hometown Media Awards are a prestigious media competition run each year by the ACM Foundation,” Barbara Chisholm, WACA Executive Director, said. “It would be an honor to receive one of these awards, but we at WACA are thrilled to have been recognized for five awards for excellence of our programs, especially during the pandemic year when programs were produced virtually instead of in our production facility.” 
Mike Wassenaar, president and CEO, Alliance for Community Media, said, “The Hometown Media Awards celebrate both the excellence of work and the diversity of media that appears on community channels being produced around the country. The ACM Foundation is proud of their achievement and of how they represent their communities in their work.”

Founded in 1979, the ACM is a national, non-profit membership organization committed to ensuring access to electronic media for all people. ACM carries out its mission by educating, advocating and acting as a resource for the more than 3,000 Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) cable channels nationwide.