DIXON – When football takes over A. C. Bowers Field at Dixon High School, all eyes are on the players — including the eyes behind the lens.

Their focus? Friday night lights, camera and action. It’s the job of a group of students off the field to capture the moments and moves on the field, the maneuvers that can change in a split second and the memories that can last a lifetime — and they’re doing it live on a student-run broadcast.

Behind the broadcast, and the cameras, are a group of students who play a starring role in sharing what’s going on at their high school, while learning a variety of skills: communication, cinematography, story-telling, technical know-how, promotion, and more.

They’re the members of the DHS Broadcasting Club, and they can be found throughout the school showcasing and sharing high school happenings, from filming sporting events to making features on teachers to shining a light on the arts and student activities. Their productions end up on the club’s YouTube channel, where anyone who can get online — near or far — can tune in to what the Dukes are doing.

Behind the broadcasts is a program built on trial and error, something advisor Bob Wendt, who has about 30 years in communication and multimedia, leans into by letting students learn through doing.

“I show the kids a lot, but I also let them make mistakes,” Wendt said. “That first season we had one camera that panned, zoomed and you could control it remotely, and we had one microphone that sat on a table. They quickly learned a lot of things in that first season.”

The club began in spring 2024, sparked by student interest, and quickly expanding into school and community coverage. Its earliest broadcasts were far from seamless, including one girls soccer game where students were tasked with filling a 10-minute halftime segment. The three commentators also crowded around a single microphone to work through live production while figuring out the rhythm of their routine in real time.

“I warned them to bring information for halftime that you can talk about on the air,” Wendt said. “It’s 10 minutes. ‘Oh, we got lots of statistics.’ They blew through it in two minutes.

But, he said, “By the end of that spring, we learned a lot with that same gear,” and the foundation for the club had been set. Progress came quickly, and by the next school year students had found their footing, honing their skills in execution and problem-solving.

“We cut our teeth a lot,” Wendt said. “We went into the fall season having issues, but the kids overcame them. They figured out solutions, and we were able to put together some really cool broadcasts. We added more cameras and more basketball games, and we really improved through basketball season with the multiple cameras.”

Community support accelerated that growth. A $9,000 grant from the Canterbury Foundation in spring 2025 and a $20,000 grant from the Donaldson Foundation that summer allowed the club to expand its equipment, improve production quality and operate more like a small, professional broadcast team, adding multiple cameras and more advanced capabilities.

Now working with a consistent group of 12 students this year, the club has expanded not only its equipment, but awareness among students and the public. Further ambitions continue, such as live interviews during games.

Freshman Kelsie Ludwig didn’t come to the club on just a lark. It started with a future she could already see — one framed by cameras, weather maps and the steady cadence of a voice delivering forecasts. Watching weather documentaries and local TV helped shape her vision, but stepping into the club is making it a reality.

“At first, [I joined] mostly because of the job that I plan on doing when I’m older, to be a meteorologist,” Ludwig said. “I wanted to be able to manage cameras, and to be on television with that as well. It’s hard to get that far, but I want to at least try.”

Her ambition quickly met reality the moment she first appeared on camera. While nerves were unavoidable during those early appearances, they were replaced by confidence and growth, one recording at a time.

“I got more comfortable in front of the camera,” Ludwig said. “At first, I was kind of scared because I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to talk to the camera without being stiff and scared, but then I was able to manage.”

Behind the lens, the experience is just as demanding. With a headset guiding each move and live direction coming in real time, Ludwig and her fellow camera crew-members have learned to anticipate moments before they happen, whether they are covering football under the lights or tracking a rally on the volleyball court.

“With recording, there’s a headset and we get told what camera is going,” Ludwig said. “You have to know when you are going to be on, so you usually should just record the whole time you’re doing it. It’s easier when I know I’m on, so I need to make sure I keep up.”

For fellow freshman Cade Kirchhoff, the pull of the program draws him toward sports, with the rhythm and unpredictability of live games. Whether he’s stationed behind a camera or stepping into a play-by-play role, the experience has given him a front-row seat to the games he loves to watch. He has enjoyed doing play-by-play for baseball games, and picked up some tricks of the trade by watching his favorite baseball team.

“You got to know about the sport and what happens during it, and the rules,” Kirchhoff said. “I get some advice from watching some Cubs games. You’re thinking ahead of what they could do and what pitch he might throw.”

When he’s not guiding viewers through a game, he’s behind the camera at other events. The same sense of anticipation carries over in that role, where instinct and timing matter just as much as technical skill.

“I can expect what’s going to happen more,” Kirchhoff said. “I know where I can move the camera. You have to be steady and not move the camera a lot.”

Junior Sebastian Seibel leads much of the production. As the club’s president, his work involves directing, producing and making sure each broadcast comes together as planned.

What keeps him invested is the realization that the experience reaches far beyond the screen.

“As Bob likes to say — and I full agree with it — this is something that anybody can get into,” Seibel said. “There are a lot of skills that can be pulled from this, such as being able to communicate on the flow, the technical aspects behind the scenes, and some responsibility because people show up to these games and we count on them. Plus an interview aspect and coming up with questions. There’s a plethora of skills that can be pulled from this, it just matters what type of person you are.”

Multi-faceted roles are common among the students; even Seibel’s experience as a former high school wrestler has been called upon at times to explain holds, scoring scenarios and how a dual meet or tournament works. “I used to wrestle, so sometimes I’ll hop on the microphone for that,” Seibel said. “Most of the time, I’ll be behind the scenes and working with the cameras.”

While the club’s work is often noticed by fellow students, their families and community members, their talents are on display well beyond their familiar confines, especially with sports broadcasts. During a Class 4A football playoff game in November against Coal City, Seibel noticed something that underscored the reach of their work: viewers tuning in from outside Dixon, including supporters of the opposing team.

“In the playoffs, we were able to reach out to some people from Coal City, and I’ve heard from families who have watched sports that aren’t from here,” Seibel said. “It’s really nice.”

Beyond live broadcasts, the club is expanding into interviews, student journalism and covering student performances.

At the same time, much of the creativity fueling the broadcasts happens in the digital layers done behind the scenes. Graphics, animations and social media promotion have become another way for students to leave their mark. Seibel especially enjoys working on those aspects.

“I’ve pushed out new graphics that I like to design,” Seibel said. “We’ve also used templates that we’ve made which have been nice for us, and I’ve gone into Adobe After Effects and have made animations for the broadcast itself. There’s a lot of work that we’ve done behind the scenes with graphic design and motion design and working all of these aspects into a broadcast.”

Though the occasional challenges still pop up, the program has come a long way.

“We’ve seen it become a lot more reliable,” Seibel said. “When we started, we were running maybe one or two cameras that were not very reliable and would just bail out on us. We now have more reliable equipment, and have doubled or tripled it. We’ve still seen bumps, but not as often as we did before. The consistency of our productions has become more reliable.”

Skills learned take shape in different ways for each student, whether it’s finding confidence on camera or behind it, learning to anticipate the next play, or solving problems in the control room. But one of the most rewarding parts comes when all of those moving pieces align, Seibel said.

“I like seeing people being engaged,” Seibel said. “They love to work in this environment. That’s real nice, especially when everything comes together and you have a full broadcast with people — it takes people to operate cameras and do all of this work. It’s really satisfying to see when all of this comes together for a complete project. They’ve done a great job. We definitely have fun around here, and that’s definitely something I like seeing.”

In the end, the broadcasts themselves may capture the action on the field or the stage, but behind every frame is a group of students learning and creating something bigger than any one role, one camera or one voice.

In the end, the broadcasts may seem seamless to the people watching, but behind every frame is a group of students learning and creating something bigger than any one role, one camera or one voice.

For Wendt, the value of the program stretches into a media landscape where video is everywhere, and the skills students build now carry forward in ways both expected and unexpected.

“There will always be a need for camera people, producers and directors,” Wendt said. “Our world now revolves around video — not only in TV, but with YouTube and all of that. We have some kids who are naturals, and have that knack of knowing. Things like lighting, camera angles, when to zoom in and out; if they can get some skills and do something that they might not have done on their own, even if they’re making their own TikToks, we consider that a win.”

Dixon High School’s Broadcasting Club has recorded several sports events and school functions on its YouTube page. Go to youtube.com/@dhsbroadcastingclub to view videos. Call the school at 815-453-4966 for more information on the club.