Here in The Five Cities, people like to be involved. They like to know about upcoming events within many aspects of the community, especially involving Arroyo Grande High School. We have a wide range of extracurricular activities, such as sports, like Football or Basketball, and more artistic activities, like Drama and Band. People enjoy coming to our games and our performances. To help get the word out about our school, students from the Film and Video Production Class have volunteered to be interviewed once a month on the Andy Morris Radio Show.

“I teach Algebra 1 and Film and Video Production, which is in charge of the bulletin, the newsletter, the daily alerts, updating the website, and we’ve been fortunate enough to be chosen to go on a radio show once a month,” said James Carter, a teacher at AGHS. “We get 15 minutes, and we talk about everything AG. We aren’t going to cover classes necessarily; we’re going to cover [things like plays], like what dates, how much it costs.”

In addition to that, they also plan to discuss things like band, sports, drama, leadership, and otherwise exciting events happening on our campus. 

“If there is an important event happening we try to cover it, if a club is doing something important we try to cover that,” Carter continued. “Say it was Christmas time, if FFA was selling Christmas trees, we would advertise that… We try to go on the first Monday of every month, which we chose so that the listeners will get a snapshot of what that month is going to be like at AGHS.”

Andy Morris, the radio show host, first contacted Mr. Carter a few months ago, along with teachers from other high schools in the area. 

“Some of this doesn’t apply to the listeners we understand, but [Andy Morris] wants his listeners to get an idea of what is going on at all the local high schools,” Carter said. “He’s trying to get each high school on the coast to come into the show at least once a month, and it’s interview style. [Morris] kind of interviews the kids, and they have a script that we put together the whole month.”

The arrangement allows for a mutually beneficial relationship. It allows Andy Morris to get more potential listeners while promoting things happening at various high schools in The Five Cities.

“If you don’t know anything about Andy Morris, he’s on 9:20 AM at 96.5 FM, and it’s  KVEC. He does the morning show, and his average listeners are 50 and over. Our community has a lot of 50 and over, and his thought was that our community likes to know what’s going on. By having us come in, it allows Andy, who might not know what’s going on, to get information out to his audience.”

The Film and Video Production Class going on the radio once a month gives our high school (AGHS) and our community, the opportunity to share its activities and events with people around The Five Cities who might otherwise be unaware of them. Promoting our school and classes more publicly allows more people to be well-informed about local events and brings the community together.