We build community when we share our stories - whether they be a memory, an experience or just simply telling what we think is great about this place. This story was shared with us in 2013 at the Grand Rapids Community Media Center (GRCMC)'s Annual Meeting. At the time, we were demonstrating different ways that GRCMC captures our community's stories to our members. It was here that the idea for STORY MATTERS. was born- and so we didn't intend for these to be published as a part of the series, since it hadn't started yet. But when we learned recently of Keith Smith's passing, we decided we wanted to share his story with you.
Keith Smith tells his story here of how he discovered public television and got involved in his own hometown of Holland's public access service. This lead to meeting one of GRCMC's former executive directors, Dirk Koning- and a chance to sit down with him over a couple beers around his kitchen table. Here Smith talks about the impact that GRTV and Dirk Koning had on his own life. We're sharing it with you here in its entirety so you can see all of Smith's joyous personality shining through.
Special thanks to Vicky and Lee Bloomquist for requesting that we recover this footage to honor Smith's life.
STORY MATTERS. is a story collecting project from The Rapidian and GRTV. You can see all the Story Matters videos archived at therapidian.org/placematters/story.
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