By Jim Barry, CEA’s Digital Answer Man

I had the distinct pleasure of taking a few hours out of a very busy media tour schedule last week in Chicago to make a presentation to one of the “Rabbit Ears Pioneers” award winners.

Some of you may have read of CEA’s contest in which folks could send in pictures and an essay describing their old TV that is still hooked up and receiving signals via a rooftop or set top antenna. It was another of the association’s continuing efforts to educate consumers about the DTV transition.

Four monthly winners each of whom received a Zenith DTV converter box and RCA antenna represented different parts of the country — Georgia, New York, Arkansas and Illinois. The entries were judged by a panel of distinguished national newspaper and magazine editors and writers.

So I traveled out to the Andrew Jackson Language Academy in Chicago in mid afternoon to present Ms. Gwynne Richards her converter box and antenna in front of her class of eighth grade language arts student.

She knew she was one of the semifinalists and that she would be receiving a converter box and antenna, but she was overjoyed and almost speechless when I told her that she was also the grand prize winner of a Panasonic 50-inch flat screen HDTV, Sony Blu-ray High-Def DVD player and Pioneer digital surround sound system. Her very creative essay was “written” in the first person by her 35-year-old Zenith Chroma-Color TV.

I’d say she was almost as excited by the news as were her students who were impressed to hear that Ms. Richards’ was indeed an award-winning writer and gave her a rousing ovation. I spent a half hour taking questions about consumer electronics from these young boys and girls and concluded again that even with the troubles we read about every day our future as represented by these young folks is extremely bright.

Photo Courtesy of Mr. Mathew Ditto, Principal, Jackson Language Academy in Chicago, IL,

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 1:21 pm and is filed under DTV Transition, Digital Answer Man. Reply to this post, or trackback from your own site. Follow responses to this entry through the comments RSS feed.