Matthew Will
Managing Editor
After 15 years at Butler Community College as the BCTV Channel 20 Station Manager, Steve Cless has announced his retirement. During his time at Butler, Cless was not only the station manager for the on-campus TV station, but also taught MC283 Video Editing and MC176 Video Production 2.
After 10 years with KAKE TV, Cless took the station manager job at Butler, looking forward to the challenge and enjoyment the job was to bring. When Cless first arrived, Butler only had two video editing stations. Cless showed concern for the 30 students all trying to edit on two workplaces, so in 2008, Cless was able to put funds into a new lab.
Prior to his time at KAKE, he attended Kansas State University where he earned his bachelor’s degree, studying radio and television.
“[Teaching in that lab] was honestly the most fun,” Cless said. “Because you get to work with students all the time and that was really the cool part.”
One of the big goals for Cless upon starting at Butler was developing the on-campus television station. At the time, the college would interrupt the NASA Channel for small amounts of time to broadcast some student productions. Once the college acquired the license to BCTV Channel 20, the programming consisted of a rolling slideshow.
Now, BCTV Channel 20 has constant student productions running. This includes everything from the bi-weekly campus news show Campus Edge, to the comedy show McGrizzles to on-site recordings of on-campus and community events.
When the program films those special on-campus, off-campus and community events, Cless gives students the opportunity to assist in those productions. While students do get paid, many believe the opportunity is bigger than the money that comes with it.
“It gives me a lot of extra practice in all sorts of different recording environments,” radio and television student Zack Schwarzenberger said. “And I know it is practice that will help me later in anything because camera operation translates to just about anything. But I also know I am going to be doing the right job. Because if I am not doing something correctly, [Cless] will correct me and explain how to do it.”
Going forward, Cless hopes to continue doing productions. He has been in contact with many clients he currently helps out with. He hopes to find ways to give students quality hands-on experience.
“I hope [my students] get a better understanding of what of the bigger world in this department is,” Cless said. “I really wanted to bring, if nothing else, a real-world experience in TV studios and video editing, so that when a student goes somewhere, they can say, ‘Yep, I have done that.’”
