We're Live!

The Colonel and I have been volunteering with the Blanchard House Museum for 12 years now. We have been exposed to many new people and experiences because of our time with the museum.

We have visited other museums, attended state sponsored conferences, participated in scientific endeavors, been guests on the local radio station, were featured in the local newspaper, told our story for StoryCorps, partnered with the Smithsonian Museum, to name a few things.

Our latest experience was being interviewed by Lee Pitts for his Lee Pitts Live show. Lee Pitts' award-winning program has been airing for 28 years. His program reaches over 750,000 households in seven surrounding counties. It airs on Sundays at 8:30 a.m. on the area channel of FOX 4. His previous programs can be found on YouTube. Our interview will be aired on August 5th. Lee Pitts Live has only been doing on-site, full-set interviews for six years.

Lee Pitts was invited to use the Blanchard House Museum as the backdrop for his show by our museum director and her son, who is a city councilman. Our director ordered asked us to be interviewees for the show.

Lee Pitts arrived at the museum on the morning of June 18th and began setting up for the interviews.

14 guests would be interviewed throughout the day. Each interview would be around eight minutes in length. Two of those guests were our city's mayor and our director's son, the city councilman. Some of the other guests included a politician and a local business man.

The Colonel and I were interviewed around mid-day. We sat down at the round table and were fitted with microphones and had a sound check. Before the tape began rolling, Lee Pitts gave us some ground rules: look at him, not the camera, answer in full sentences, and bump our Lee Pitts Live cups upon beginning and ending the interview (we got to keep the cups and Lee Pitts autographed them for us).

Lee Pitts started our interview saying something like, "It doesn't take a genius to see that you are not black, so how did you become involved with an African American museum?" We discussed how we became involved and what we do for the museum (you will just have to Google Lee Pitts Live on YouTube, in August, to find out what we said). The eight-minute interview flew by. We were not nervous. Lee Pitts has a way of posing questions that makes you feel at ease and gives you plenty to talk about.

Lee Pitts and his team tapes shows on location one month in advance. To make it look like he was taping a new week's show (July 22nd through August 12th), he brought along four different suit jackets and ties. He changed into a new jacket and tie before certain interviews. Lee Pitts is looking into perhaps returning to the Blanchard House Museum in the fall. I am pretty sure The Colonel and I will not be on the roster then.

I studied television and radio in college and got my degree in Broadcast Technology. I was once a television anchor and reporter for a little station in Indiana. Even though I knew what I could expect with the Lee Pitts Live show experience, it was interesting and fun to watch it in action and be part of it.

I am looking forward to watching our interview on television. I have my DVR set to record.