Harrison in the news

A couple weeks ago, Harrison came home from school with a letter saying he had been invited to Kadlec Hospital to represent his school. Apparently his classroom had donated the most change in a fundraiser ("Coins for Kids," raising money for the pediatric unit of the hospital) back in December, and he had been randomly chosen to get to go to the ceremony.  It was on President's day, so the kids all had the day off from school.  We were a bit late in arriving, and when we walked in, I was surprised to see several members of the media there with television cameras and microphones and notepads.  I felt bad I had forgotten my camera.  They had the kids present the hospital staff with one of those giant checks.  I wish I got a good shot of that. 

The fundraiser was organized my Miss Washington's Outstanding Teen, a girl that goes to the local high school, who had gone to the same elementary school as Harrison.  After the little ceremony, they let the news outlets interview the kids.  Harrison was interviewed by the local newspaper, and the local NBC affiliate.  I wish I had known - I would have prepped him a little bit with answers - he really thought long and hard about each question.  Then the kids went on a tour of the pediatric unit, and it all ended with some refreshments. Olivia went up to Miss Washington's outstanding teen, and asked, "Are you a real princess?" To which she answered, "Yes!"  Olivia was delighted.

That night we anxiously turned on the 5 o'clock news to watch the story.  My heard sank as the clip proceeded.  They cropped Harrison out of the shot with the check.  And then the 3 other kids their got a snippit of their interview on camera.  Nothing of Harrison. We could see Olivia in the background, and Noah's hands playing with a toy.  The very end of the story showed Harrison playing with a friend in the toy room. 

It was a bit of a disappointment.  But we knew he had also been interviewed by the newspaper.    So, first thing in the morning, we checked out the newspapers website.  And we were not disappointed.  It definitely made up for the news broadcast.  It was on the front page of the B section, and had a color picture (that included Harrison!)  The article started with Harrison's name, and quoted him.  He was pretty excited.  Sam went out and bought a couple copies to take in to school and save for a scrapbook.   It's fun to live in a town that's small enough to have stuff like this make the paper and nightly news.  


Here's the last news article - we don't get this channel, so we weren't able to see the actual broadcast of the story, but at least they didn't crop Harrison's face out of the picture with the check.