FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – When a tornado hit Central Arkansas Sunday, April 2, students from the Walter J. Lemke department of department traveled to the area to report on the destruction and help get information out to the public. The job tested their classroom training – and their technical ingenuity.

UATV station manager Tevin Wooten is an aspiring meteorologist and has covered several weather disasters in the past, but this one really hit home.

He was in the KNWA newsroom in Fayetteville, shadowing meteorologists Dan Skoff and Gina Delvecchio, when the tornados hit. He knew immediately he wanted to be in the heart of the aftermath.

“I told the staff there that it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t go,” Wooten said. “We didn’t have tornadic activity in Fayetteville. With the damaged areas being relatively close in Arkansas, I saw this as a window of opportunity for UATV.”

Wooten knew he needed a solid news team to travel with him and contacted UATV reporters Jacob Pinter and Alyssa Becker, along with field producer Reagan Barton. Becker is from Conway and the tornado hit a community just 10 miles from her parents’ home.

“I texted several reporters, and even posted a status on Facebook,” Wooten said. “I didn’t think people would respond since it was late, and I almost changed my mind about going. Students responded to me early that morning so I knew then…it was time to get to work.”

“When I found out Tevin was taking a team to Central Arkansas I knew I wanted to be there,” Becker said. “My community needed answers, and I knew I was someone that was able to get them. It was hard going into the area at first, knowing several of my friends’ homes were gone and people had lost loved ones. Once I got on the scene all my training kicked in and I started finding stories.”

“With such short notice we weren’t able to check out more than one camera. Thankfully, we all had our smartphones. Once we got out of the car I immediately started shooting video and taking pictures with our phones and posting them to social media,” Becker said.

The student news team got resourceful as the 9 p.m. Monday newscast deadline approached. They didn’t have a light kit or a live truck, like most traditional news stations. Instead they carried two laptops with editing software, a video camera and their smartphones.

“We had some pretty obvious technological hurdles to get past,” Pinter explained. “Since we didn’t have any kind of live truck or even a wifi hotspot, we had to leave Vilonia and go to Alyssa’s house in Conway to edit and use her Internet to upload our stories. We stayed there until the last possible minute pushing video back to Fayetteville, and it was a mad dash (within the speed limit, of course) to go 25 minutes down the road back to Vilonia, where all of our stories had happened. We made it back five minutes before UATV News went live.”

“Fortunately for us, we hadn’t been allowed inside Vilonia for most of the time during the day. So as we were first gathering our story, we found an area right off a state highway that the tornado hit particularly hard. We knew that spot would be available to us even if the city itself wasn’t accessible,” Pinter said.

Using an iPhone, Skype technology and their car headlights, they were able to go live with their story on UATV’s live newscast. Their reports can be seen online at http://uatvonline.net/central-ar-tornado/.

The team spent 24 hours in central Arkansas covering the unfolding story, but one interview continues to touch Wooten the most. 

“I met a man who had been through three tornadoes in seven years. Prior to this event, he only sustained roof damage. After Sunday, his entire home and all of his possessions were gone. Only his porch was left. He told me he had built it by himself just last year.”

 But amidst the tragic stories, the team recognized a bright spot in the experience: they got to share the story of Arkansas’ outpouring of kindness.

 “It was amazing to see how much support came from my home town and surrounding areas to help the people affected by the storm,” Becker said. “While we were on the scene we saw hundreds of volunteers, and so many donations were given they actually had to turn them away because of the lack of space.”

 “I learned that as a journalist you can never be fully prepared for something like this, but you have to just jump in there and do your job,” Pinter said.

Becker added, “Even though it was scary and something different from what I was used to, my education had given me the resources and understanding of what I had to do in an intense time.”

Back in Fayetteville, journalism faculty Larry Foley and Robyn Ledbetter, along with broadcast graduate assistant Tiffany King, kept an open line of communication with the students.

King is no stranger to scenes like this one; she covered the Mena tornado as a KHBS/KHOG reporter,

“Reporting on the aftermath of a tornado can be one of the most stressful experiences for a young journalist,” she said. “Our students were surrounded by devastation. They watched as residents began the emotional task of picking up the pieces. The UATV crew stayed strong, focused on their stories and went above and beyond our expectations. There is no way we can simulate this type of experience in the classroom. Their efforts are something we all can be proud of.”

“At 9 p.m., they reported live on UATV news,” Foley said. “I am so proud of their efforts. They did what journalism professionals do—they passed along useful information at the scene of the most important story to hit our state in some time. These young professionals answered the call when the alarm sounded.”

Ledbetter added, “We had high hopes of the students sending back their stories in time, but weren’t sure that the live shots were going to work, especially since they didn’t have a light kit and phone service was sketchy in that particular area. I’m so happy they were resourceful enough to make it happen.”

Ledbetter now plans on using this experience as she teaches the next generation of journalism students how to cover breaking news.

“Unfortunately it took a tragedy to give the students this type of breaking news experience. I’m proud of the team for taking the initiative to jump in the car and go and their clear thinking once they arrived. To be a part of a journalism program that gives the students the tools they need to do that is something to be admired.”