The next several days at the RCN TV studio is known as “parade week.” We know, based on the feedback we get from our viewers each year, that our audience loves the fall/Halloween season and their community parades that celebrate the holiday. These parades feature many local residents and organizations that we serve. That means here at the studio (to borrow a baseball playoff term) it’s “all hands on deck” for our RCN crew members, as they are busy being out-and-about in the area in order to cover as many local parades as we can during the next ten days or so.
Consequently, some of our regular work assignments, including those of us on the “RCN SportsTalk” show, take a back seat for the next week in order to provide coverage of these special events. This Thursday, instead of a live, call-in/email-us edition of the show, we will have a taped program (at 7pm), dealing with the controversial new high school playoff system in Pennsylvania, with local administrators & coaches giving their insights on the new systems, policies and changes that have/will continue to affect all scholastic sports.
We’ll return next week with our live show and a whole new round of District XI high school football poll results, leading up to the final week of the regular season.
In the meantime–and to get you set for what will be an exciting “playoff push” for teams in our coverage area, here’s a look back at highlights from recent games broadcast on RCN TV. We hope you enjoy–and remember to check back here next week for more sports insights, videos and opinions.
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Last but not least, the RCN family lost two wonderful people this past week.
Former Sports Director Bob Gehris passed away last weekend. While I never had the pleasure of working with Mr. Gehris directly—he retired prior to me starting with the company—I knew of his great reputation here in the Lehigh Valley for many years. When I started here at RCN, he approached me warmly and always offered me great encouragement, advice and some tremendous stories of all of his great experience calling games over the years. He would often greet me at local sports venues or the Allentown Fair to ask me how things were going, and he was always a wonderful guest when he made special appearances on our “RCN SportsTalk” program.
Ironically, one of Mr. Gehris’s close friends was our own Bob Gery, who also left us this weekend.
Bob served many roles for decades at Twin County/RCN and was a true friend to everyone who knew him. He served countless roles—many of them not seen nor noticed by our viewers, and that’s because of Bob’s dedication and tremendous work ethic behind the scenes. While we are scrambling to try to cover for all of Bob’s work responsibilities, it pales in comparison to the great human being the community has lost.
While he was a very quiet person to most people, he was very passionate about things he loved: politics, history, the Beatles, the Flyers, golf and the local sports landscape. Bob worked very long hours during our busiest times of the sports season, but always had a smile on his face when he’d be out at productions and see familiar sports personalities—Doug Snyder, Steve Shiffert, Bob Shriver, Bron Holland, were just a few of his favorites.
We spent many hours in the back offices coordinating different projects for “Community Spotlight,” “SportsTalk,” remote productions and whatever else came our way, but Bob was at his best when we could come into my office and relax and talk about whatever was on his mind—and he always had great insights in whatever he chose to talk about.
Both are viewed as Lehigh Valley television legends in my mind, while serving very different, but both essential, roles. Both were class acts, and both of them will be very much missed by all.
Be sure to also check out Gary Laubach’s “Behind the Mic” blog this week for his reflections on the passing of Bob Gery.
