The Story Behind Our Southeast Regional Emmy® Award
Preserving Broadcast History: The Story Behind Our 2009 Southeast Regional Emmy® Win
In the fast-moving world of digital media, local television history moves quickly. Platforms evolve, databases are migrated, and early internet archives are frequently lost to time. Today, I want to plant a permanent digital flag for a milestone that remains a proud highlight of my professional journey: winning a 2009 Southeast Regional Emmy® Award for Outstanding Achievement in Television Advanced Media Excellence – Interactivity.
Long before modern social media voting apps and sophisticated real-time polling widgets became standard fixtures in broadcast news, our digital and production team at WJBF-TV (the ABC affiliate in Augusta, Georgia) recognized a unique opportunity. We wanted to bridge the gap between traditional Friday night high school sports broadcasting and the rapidly expanding capabilities of the web.
The idea was deceptively simple: let’s add an interactive digital component to our flagship Football Friday Night programming and give the fans a real stake in the game.
The result was MascotVote.
From Halloween Costumes to Live TV Glory
High school football culture runs deep across the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA). To launch the initiative, we invited 16 local high schools to our studio over the summer for a media photoshoot, asking them to bring two cheerleaders and their school mascot. When the kids showed up wearing hot, heavy, store-bought Halloween costumes as their official school representation, we instantly realized just how impactful our grand prize could be: the winning school would receive a fully customized, high-end, professional mascot suit.
I built a custom web platform focused on tracking weekly results, brackets, and a robust voting component. The tournament format was straightforward: vote, survive, and advance.
The response was electric. School administrators, faculty, students, and boosters caught on instantly. The website traffic surged as communities rallied to out-vote their rivals. At the end of the competitive cycle, our corporate sponsors revealed the winning school on television. The buzz across the region was entirely real, the sponsor partnership was a massive success, and when that professional mascot was finally delivered weeks later, it absolutely did not disappoint.
A David-vs-Goliath Moment in Atlanta
When the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) Southeast Chapter announced the Emmy® nominees, we were thrilled just to be in the room. As a local station in Augusta, we fully expected the award to go to a major campaign called “Postcards to Afghanistan,” produced by a massive, resource-heavy TV station in the Atlanta market.
But interactivity is about community engagement—and our community spoke louder.
When the presenter read “WJBF-TV,” our table erupted into pure, unhinged joy. It was a surreal validation of our hard work and a memory that will last a lifetime. The official engraving on the statuette permanently honors the dedicated team that brought this concept to life:
- Robert Pippin
- Roberto Vasquez
- James Dean
- John Holden
And there were many contributors to MascotVote, including Trish Thornhill, Brittany Everhardt, John Hart, and the entire sales team at WJBF.
A Visual Look Back
While corporate station websites and regional chapter links from over fifteen years ago may have phased out, the physical history remains. Here is a close-up of the official Emmy® statuette detailing this specific win.
As I preserve this piece of broadcast history, I want to honor the memory of John Holden, who was instrumental in bringing Mascotvote.com to life but is no longer with us. This digital record stands not only as documentation of our achievement, but as a lasting tribute to his contributions to our industry and our team.
