Today in the MHSAA: 2/5/18
February 5, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Each weekday of the school year, we break down the top headlines courtesy of Michigan’s sports media.
Today's Top 10
1. Wrestling: Division 2 No. 9 Stevensville Lakeshore finished ahead of No. 6 Niles and Division 1 No. 10 Battle Creek Lakeview to complete a Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference title with a league tournament win – St. Joseph Herald-Palladium
2. Hockey: After falling to Indiana power Culver Academy on Friday, Division 1 top-ranked Detroit Catholic Central came back to down Ohio power Cleveland St. Ignatius 6-1 at the MIHL Prep Hockey Showcase – Observer & Eccentric
3. Boys Swimming & Diving: Lower Peninsula Division 1 No. 10 Detroit Catholic Central got past No. 4 Birmingham Brother Rice to win the Oakland County championship – Oakland Press
4. Boys Basketball: Foster Loyer scored 31 points in a 75-29 win over Bloomfield Hills to go over 2,000 for his career – Detroit Free Press
5. Girls Basketball: Morenci clinched a share of its first league title since 2004 with a 79-54 win over Ottawa Lake Whiteford in the Tri-County Conference – Adrian Daily Telegram
6. Cheer: Division 2 No. 2 Gibraltar Carlson claimed the overall title just ahead of host and No. 5 Southgate Anderson at the Southgate Invitational; No. 9 Dearborn Divine Child was third – Southgate News Herald
7. Boys Basketball: Ryan Arndt went over 1,000 career points for Bark River-Harris in its 85-45 win over Felch North Dickinson – Iron Mountain Daily News
8. Wrestling: Gladwin finished second at the Jack Pine Conference tournament to Beaverton, but by doing so clinched its first league title in the sport in more than a decade – Midland Daily News
9. Girls Basketball: Pittsford ran its winning streak to 70 with a 49-32 win over Athens, which entered the week also undefeated – Hillsdale Daily News
10. Wrestling: Division 1 No. 9 Hudsonville followed up a perfect regular-season run by winning the Ottawa-Kent Conference Red league tournament – Grand Rapids Press
Also of note …
Wrestling: Division 2 top-ranked Lowell celebrated nine individual champions on the way to winning the O-K White league tournament – Grand Rapids Press
Wrestling: Temperance Bedford and Tecumseh clinched Southeastern Conference division championships, with Bedford winning the overall league title – Adrian Daily Telegram
Wrestling: Edwardsburg finished off a second straight Wolverine Conference championship – Niles Daily Star
Wrestling: Coldwater followed a perfect dual run through the Interstate 8 Athletic Conference with a league tournament win – Coldwater Daily Reporter
Wrestling: Division 4 No. 8 Springport also followed a perfect dual run through the Big 8 Conference with a league tournament win – Coldwater Daily Reporter
Wrestling: Byron Center edged Holland with all 14 of its wrestlers placing to win the O-K Green league tournament – Grand Rapids Press
Wrestling: Belding placed 13 wrestlers to win big at the O-K Silver tournament – Grand Rapids Press
Boys Basketball: St. Clair edged Warren Woods Tower 58-55 to clinch the Macomb Area Conference Gold championship – Port Huron Times Herald
Wrestling: Gladstone saw eight champions crowned in winning the Mid-Peninsula Conference team championship – Escanaba Daily Press
Wrestling: Brownstown Woodhaven won the Downriver League meet to share the overall league title with Southgate Anderson for the second straight season – Southgate News Herald
Wrestling: Division 3 No. 2 Richmond and Division 1 No. 1 Detroit Catholic Central added league tournament championships as well – Macomb Daily
Wrestling: Division 4 No. 3 Mendon, Comstock, Schoolcraft and Colon were among others that clinched wrestling league tournament titles – JoeInsider.com
Boys Swimming & Diving: LPD2 No. 5 Warren DeLaSalle won its sixth straight Macomb County championship – Macomb Daily
Girls Basketball: Charlevoix scored the final 13 points over 1:13 to beat Traverse City St. Francis 50-48 to create a first-place tie between the two in the Lake Michigan Conference – Traverse City Record-Eagle
Montrose's Skinner Center Built to Continue Beloved Mentor's Work
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
April 19, 2022
For more than a decade, Montrose High School has provided aspiring students one of the strongest and most lauded high school broadcast journalism programs in Michigan.
And moving forward, those students will have the opportunity to learn the craft at the newly-unveiled studio named in honor of the mentor who poured so much into those efforts.
On Thursday, MDM-TV (Montrose Digital Media – Television) opened the doors to its Thomas E. Skinner Broadcast Center, a newly-created video and audio lab, studio and production space named for Tom Skinner, a well-known Flint-area sports broadcasting voice for four decades who played a starring role in building the school’s program over his final 12 years until his death in October.
The goal was to create a fully functioning place where students can learn to create top-notch sports and news products. The network’s new home includes a podcasting lab, video and audio editing lab, studio, and control room/soundproof room for recording voiceovers. The space, formerly a distance learning lab in the middle school used most recently for storage, replaced the former studio housed in a high school classroom. MDM-TV began making the move and transformation after COVID-19 shut down the program during the spring of 2020.
Longtime teacher Jamie Kitts, who retired from fulltime classroom instruction in 2019 after 33 years in the district and remains the school’s digital media instructor and MDM-TV advisor, played a leading role in the creation of the Skinner Center – and said, frankly, the facility couldn’t have been named after anyone else. Skinner worked with the program’s on-air talent all though his dozen years, and also coordinated the summer camp for seven years.
“Tom is responsible for so much of the great work our kids have done,” Kitts said. “We could not have accomplished what we did without him. Plus, he really enjoyed working with the kids.”
Montrose’s program was named “Program of the Year” five straight from 2014-18 as part of the MHSAA’s School Broadcast Program Excellence Awards. In 2017, then-junior Eric Vandefifer was named the nation’s Best Student Broadcaster by the NFHS Network as part of its School Broadcast Program Awards. Kitts has been a finalist for the NFHS Network’s national Teacher of the Year award multiple times. Current students and Skinner proteges Danny Sackrider and Owen Leitelt recently were named the Best Sports Announcing Team in the high school division by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters – the third time Montrose has produced a winning pair.
The Skinner Center was financed through advertising sales, grants, career and technical education funding and donations, with plenty of volunteer labor and significant support from the district’s administration helping bring it to life.
Students past and present did much of the work, with local “do-everything guy” Joe Crimi playing a major role, and Kitts also gave substantial credit to the network’s sponsors Thumb Audio/Video’s Kevin Strieter.
“My wife, another retired teacher, asked me the other day, ‘What have you learned from building this broadcast center?’” Kitts said. “Typical teacher question! I have learned that even through tough times, you just can't let your dreams die. And that if you need help, just ask for it. People want to help. They just need to be asked.”
