“Hello, and welcome to this edition of Mornings…”

It’s the one moment when all of North Penn High School stops and collectively joins together for one common event… all 3,000 students and all 1st period teachers, secretaries, and anyone who happens to be pausing near a wall mounted television in the hallways. But it’s also one of the many unique features of NPHS that, when the school shutdown hit last March, seemed like, well… it made us wonder… would the show go on?

Will NPTV be able to continue even with these struggling times? Um… hello… do you know Bob Gillmer? Of course it will!  

While the format may have changed, students and staff can still access the weekly production. How?  There is a huge box at the top of the Canvas dashboard with a link to the live morning show and there is always www.youtube.com/nptv on Fridays at 11am. 

The weekly Friday morning show normally encompasses several segments that the show has become known for. These weekly highlights include scores from the previous day’s games, highlights of school events, general information for all students and staff, one on one interviews, The Brumbaugh Challenge, and of course the Question of the Week, where the anchors will go around and find random people to ask them their random question, and see their funny or brilliant answers. 

But of course as soon as Covid started cancelling all sports and large events at school, the cameras had to be reused in a new way. Students can’t be too close to each other while filming, and obviously the amount of available content was reduced with events all but stopping around the district. 

Of course they still had the will and determination to make NPTV happen while everyone was at home. And with that major changes had to be made in order to still make NPTV great.

“We will look a little different on air.  We will have one anchor, only 6 people in the control room and most likely 2 production people in the studio. We will still integrate live interviews from home,” explained Gillmer. Gillmer runs NPTV and heads up the career study program for NPTV, but he also wears much larger shoes as the NPSD Communication director. So, for Gillmer, keeping Mornings up and running has only been one of many of the items in his Covid juggling act. 

As schools in Montgomery County shift back to all virtual next week, the shift back to a distanced Mornings will also take place.

Central to NPTV’s productions are Mr. Bob Gillmer, Mr. Kyle Berger and Mrs. Mary Faikish. Alongside them has been a new crop of career study students. They all  have been working very hard both mornings and evenings to make sure the show is ready each Friday morning for the NP community to watch. 

“There’s one thing I know- our crew always steps up to challenge and this one will be no different,” Gillmer noted, as he is still carefully planning out step by step the rest of the school year with high hopes and putting together a hard working crew as well as following every health guidelines to protect others and themselves, all to create a great morning for NPTV.