Today in the MHSAA: 2/18/19
February 18, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Wrestling Regionals, Cheer Districts and more than a dozen hockey, basketball and bowling league championships won over the weekend make today’s list of high achievers perhaps the longest so far this 2018-19 school year – and check elsewhere on Second Half for coverage of our first winter Finals in Upper Peninsula swimming & diving.
1. Boys Basketball: Oscoda tied a school record with its 17th win and clinched the North Star League Big Dipper title, its first conference championship since 1991, with a 61-39 victory over Whittemore-Prescott – WBKB
2. Hockey: Division 3 No. 9 Alpena downed Traverse City Central 5-0 to clinch its first Big North Conference title since 2004-05 – Alpena News
3. Girls Basketball: Detroit Mumford repeated as Detroit Public School League Tournament champion with a 59-49 win over Detroit Martin Luther King – State Champs!
4. Wrestling: No. 2 Brighton qualified a Livingston County-record 13 for the Individual Finals from Saturday’s Division 1 Regional – Livingston Daily Press & Argus
5. Boys Basketball: Wyoming Godwin Heights clinched its 10th straight Ottawa-Kent Conference Silver title with a 63-44 win over Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian – FOX 17
6. Boys Basketball: Detroit U-D Jesuit clinched its seventh straight Detroit Catholic League A-B Tournament title with a 63-54 win over Detroit Catholic Central – Detroit News
7. Boys Basketball: Detroit Cass Tech downed Detroit Renaissance 80-56 to win the Detroit PSL Tournament title – Detroit News
8. Boys Basketball: Benton Harbor won a matchup of Division 2 championship contenders, 72-62 over River Rouge – St. Joseph Herald-Palladium
9. Basketball: Kinross Maplewood Baptist’s girls and boys basketball teams won Northern Lights Conference Tournament titles, Ellie Bell going over 1,000 career points for the girls during their run – MI Sports Now
10. Competitive Cheer: Reigning Division 2 champion Allen Park won its District, ahead of runner-up Dearborn Divine Child – Southgate News-Herald
Also of note …
Gymnastics: Jackson Area finished first and Coldwater second at the South Central Gymnastics League Championship meet, Coldwater finishing its highest since 1989 – Coldwater Daily Reporter
Boys Bowling: Gaylord put the finishing touches on a second straight Northern Michigan Bowling Conference championship – Gaylord Herald Times
Boys Bowling: Division 4 top-ranked Bronson clinched the Kensington Valley Association championship – Sturgis Journal
Boys Basketball: Josh Palo went over 1,000 career points in Howell’s 57-45 win over Novi – Livingston Daily Press & Argus
Boys Basketball: Ovid-Elsie claimed a share of the Mid-Michigan Activities Conference title with a 69-66 double-overtime win over Mount Morris – Owosso Argus-Press
Boys Basketball: Richmond clinched its second straight Blue Water Area Conference title with a 51-41 win over Almont – Port Huron Times-Herald
Bowling: The Rockford girls and Caledonia boys claimed O-K Red championships at the league tournament – Grand Haven Tribune
Boys Basketball: Ionia clinched the outright Capital Area Activities Conference White title with a big win over Lansing Catholic – Greenville Daily News
Girls Basketball: Muskegon clinched the O-K Black championship with a 72-66 win over Jenison – Local Sports Journal
Boys Basketball: Fremont clinched the Central State Activities Association Gold title with a 60-58 overtime win over Grant – Local Sports Journal
Bowling: New Boston Huron’s girls and boys teams swept the Monroe County Invitational titles; the girls are ranked No. 4 and the boys No. 10 in Division 2 – Monroe News
Boys Basketball: Royal Oak Shrine defeated Ann Arbor Greenhills to win the Catholic League C-D title – Oakland Press
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.”
