The Oklahoman will unveil its All-State High School Football team in a couple weeks. Each of the players taped a brief Q&A with Ryan Aber this afternoon.

So we had 20-25 high school kids in football jerseys, shuffling in and out of the 7th floor, while three ladies waited patiently in our green room for a 4 pm taping of Parties Extra with Helen Ford Wallace. To talk lobster.

Kanela Huff, Pam Smith and Rawsie Boyles are here today to tell us about Pam’s birthday party which is always at Kanela’s home and Rawsie cooks the very fabulous lobsters which are served with all the condiments.

And the ladies did talk lobsters and parties. Helen does a great job moderating these interviews. She brings the spirit and the enthusiasm into each interview. And she’s prepared.

I think the audience can always tell when a host is prepared and if a host is interested in the interview. Helen is always prepared and interested.

And early. Which was a bit unfortunate today since we ran long with the football interviews.

So she got to watch the Jenks and Union football players talk about their seasons and where they plan to play next year. Ryan did a great job with each interview, rattling off their stats and asking specific questions to each player. All while Helen and her girls “partied” (or reminisced) in the green room. I hope the water was tasty.

First, we used the segment to promote The Oklahoman’s football section. It hits newsstands and driveways Sunday.

During the segment, we used video from Nate Billings’ Oklahoma Focus segment from last week. Nate, one of The Oklahoman’s photographers, described what equipment he used, and why, for the black and white photos used in the football section.

Check out the result, pretty cool. Also note the lower third animation used to introduce Ed. Credit to Tanner Herriott for the editing.

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Have you met Helen Ford Wallace? Helen knows how to party. That’s why her blog and podcast are called Parties Extra! with Helen Ford Wallace.

Helen has been instrumental in blogging for NewsOK.com. And she has been a faithful blogger. Then she became a faithful podcaster. All the while, very enthusiastic. And let’s face it, we all encounter enough haters in life. It’s cool when someone just has fun with work. Makes it NOT seem like work. And that’s cool.

So Helen and I got to emailing last week, and she had several good ideas. Including a separate email blast for her listeners. And don’t laugh. She has over 6,000 on her Parties Extra! email list. So today, we fired out a second Parties Extra! email with her latest podcast. Jamie Davis, owner of Jamie’s Foods in Casady Square, joined Helen in the podcast studios, and here it is.
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