Sun Prairie

Mike Powers is the voice of Sun Prairie Football on Sun Prairie Media

For the last thirty years, Mike Powers has been a well-recognized voice of Sun Prairie High School football broadcasts on Sun Prairie Media Center channels. This year, the Wisconsin Community Media Board of Directors is honoring his service to the community with a Friend of Access Award. He is one of two to receive the award this year.

Mike Powers at home in the control booth

Mike was the announcer for the Madison Muskie’s baseball team when in 1992, Pam Steitz, the former director of the Sun Prairie Media Center, and Jim Yeager, the play-by-play announcer for Sun Prairie football games, approached him for help.  “Jim had a hard time handling live play-by-play at the same time as the broadcast,” said Powers, “so they were getting various people to help.  I was one of them and I just stayed on.”   After Jim left, a trio of Powers, Bill Baker, and Jamison Rabbitt took on the announcing duties.  Sometimes all three would do the games, sometimes they rotated. 

Powers’ 30th year coincided with the opening of a second high school in Sun Prairie.  During the first-ever game between the Sun Prairie East Cardinals and the Sun Prairie West Wolves on September 16, 2022, Powers was honored during half-time.  Sun Prairie Media Center submitted this game to the Best of the Midwest Media Fest, and it won a top Excellence Award and a Best in Show Award in the amateur level category, “Client:  School.”  Producers on the show were Dan Corcoran, Mike Powers, and Bill Baker.

Rabbitt, Powers and Baker announcing high school football for Sun Praire Media Center.

Now with two teams to cover for the city, the trio is splitting up, with Baker and Powers taking East High School football and Rabbitt and Steve Sabatke taking on West High.  They also plan to expand their coverage of high school sports to boys’ baseball and girls’ softball. 

Powers may have retired after 34 years at his “real” broadcast job with 102.5 Christian Radio in 2020, but he keeps busy.  That year he and his wife founded InSpiritRadio.online where Powers is the CEO and morning show host.  And he has his own radio show on Sun Prairie Media’s LPFM radio station, The Sun 103.5, on Sundays called Praise on the Prairie.  He’s also produced a few video programs at Sun Prairie Media Center where he’s had fun interviewing artists and country music singers. 

“People at the media center are my friends.  And Sun Prairie Media Center is one of the finest media centers in the whole state,” said Powers.  “I have an outstanding group to work with.  Everyone has been so supportive.” 

Powers will be accepting his Friend of Access Award at the Best of the Midwest Media Fest Banquet and Show the evening of May 4, 2023.  For ticket information, go here.

 

Long-time photographer Tim Hatfield jumps into community television with both feet

Tim Hatfield shoots a scene for the production, Shop with a Cop.

Tim Hatfield was sold on community television the first time he stepped into the Sun Prairie Media Center (SPMC) in February of 2020 to drop off a video of his church’s most recent service.  “I was given a tour and I joined the media center on the spot.”  Hatfield, a recently retired civil engineer, has always been interested in visual imagery.  “I’ve been dabbling in photography most of my life, I bought my first SLR in the early 1980s. I honed my skills as a member of the Battle Creek Camera Club in Michigan, an excellent nature photography-oriented club -- some of the members actually sold images to the Sierra Club for its calendars.” 

Once he became a member of SPMC he started producing videos. “For my first video, I taped my ride in a B-17 bomber flight over Madison. Since then I’ve taped parades, school concerts, city committee meetings and hockey games to name a few.” 

Tim Hatfield and the Outstanding Volunteer award from Sun Prairie Media Center

In 2022, Hatfield was awarded SPMC’s highest honor for “Outstanding Dedication and Service to the Media Center.”  Jeff Robbins, SPMC Executive Director said, “I can’t think of a year when we’ve had a more worthy recipient. Tim Hatfield is probably the single volunteer that we rely on the most for filming ANYTHING. Not only does he do great camerawork, but he – we hope – seems to genuinely enjoy it. And he does his own editing!” 

Hatfield says, “I love capturing and editing video, it gives me opportunities to meet new people, to attend new events, plus it keeps me active.” 

Hatfield entered the Best of the Midwest Media Fest this year with three shows:  The Great Race (“The world’s premiere old car rally, brought 120 of the world’s finest antique automobiles to Sun Prairie and we were there!”); Landscape of Families: Presented by The WI Dells Singers and Dance Troupe of the Ho Chunk Nation (“A final glimpse of the Ho-Chunk enjoying their homeland prior to the start of forced expulsion from their villages.”); and Enduring Skills Weekend at the Historic Indian Agency House: Voyageur Canoe Excursion (“Have you ever tried blacksmithing?  Flint knapping?... Many historical skills and techniques would be lost to time were it not for those who continue to practice and research them to this day.”). 

You can see “Voyageur Canoe” below on Sun Prairie Media’s Telvue server by clicking the image below.  Then use the arrows on the bottom right to make the video full screen.