Your Kansas City News Leader . . .

Earlier this year Grant developed a fascination for all things related to news stations. He spent a lot of time researching various news affiliates around the country and can probably tell you a new affiliate for most major cities in the United States (You can find anything on Youtube!). He loves to watch the intros to local news shows and can tell you what news reporters and meteorologists work for which stations. It's fascinating to him. He is particularly fond of meteorologists and has loved to watch the weather forecasts since he was tiny. Meteorologists have kind of a rock star status in Grant's world. As Grant's 7th birthday approached, one of the theme ideas that Grant came up with for his party was to have a news station party. He wanted to invite all of the Kansas City news personalities to his party, especially those from NBC Action News. Seriously, the kid loves the new that much.

About a month before Grant's birthday, I mentioned all of this to my friend Heather. Heather was one of my Resident Assistants during my second year working at Jewell and has been a special friend to Grant since he was born. One of Heather's gifts is being able to come up with big ideas and then to go after them. So, Heather set to work at getting Grant into the NBC Action News station. long story short, she connected with another one of my former residents whose father works at the station and set up an amazing visit to the for Grant. He got to hang out with Brett Anthony, the morning meteorologist, for about an hour, got a tour of the station, including meeting other news personalities, and got to watch the mid-day news show in the studio. He even got to be on TV during one of Brett's weather forecasts! Heather, you made Grant one of the happiest 7 year olds around!

Grant getting ready to go into the station. We LOVE news station logos, so we were happy to see this in person.

Grant and Brett Anthony at the news desk. I wish I had a picture of Grant's face as we entered the studio. He was in awe. Brett was on the phone when we first walked in, so Grant wandered around the studio amazed. As soon as Brett hung up the phone, Grant marched over with his hand stretched out and said, "Good morning, Brett Anthony. Thank you so much for having me today."

Brett showed Grant around the studio and explained how he does the weather forecasts. This picture is of Grant working the weather maps for Brett.

This is Grant and Brett getting ready to film a weather forecast for the NBC ActionWeather Plus digital station. The segment ran every 15 minutes for much of the day.

During the tour of the station, Brett set showed Grant where reporters sit for shots from the news room. He hooked a microphone up on Grant's shirt and let him read from the teleprompter.

The whole experience was wonderful. Brett and the rest of the people at NBC were so gracious towards Grant. Our loyalty towards NBC Action News is sealed!