Broadcaster takes first in Air Force Media Contest

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Heather Rodgers
  • 17th Training Wing Public Affairs
GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE, Texas-- --   Imagine you're a staff sergeant stationed here. You're on leave in New York visiting with family, when your spouse calls with a message that you need to call the wing commander immediately. What would you think? What kind of crazy scenarios would be running through your head? Just ask Staff Sgt. Michael Falvo, a Broadcast Producer assigned to the 17th Training Wing Public Affairs Office. On March 25, this was his reality.

Early that Friday morning, Sergeant Falvo answered the phone still wiping sleep out of his eyes while Col. Thomas Geary, 17th Training Wing Commander, was on the other end informing him of "a very serious Public Affairs matter he needed to discuss" with him. After keeping Sergeant Falvo in suspense Col.Geary congratulated him for being awarded first place in the 2010 Air Force Media Contest.

"I didn't believe it at first because I had just woke up," Sergeant Falvo said.

He said a few minutes after talking to Col.Geary, he received a call from the Public Affairs Chief, Kent Cummins, who was also congratulating him.

"I asked him numerous times, 'Is this for real?' He assured me that I did in fact win," Sergeant Falvo said.

The media contest has multiple categories for four different career fields: broadcasters, graphic artists, journalists and photographers. The contest starts at the wing level and from there submissions move on to the major command level. Sergeant Falvo received two first place Air Education and Training Command broadcasting awards, one for the news category and one for the sports category. His sports story was about the annual National Cavalry Competition at Fort Concho. His news story was about the wing's August 2010 Active Shooter exercise, which will now compete at the Defense Department level for a Thomas Jefferson Award. He is one of only three Airmen from AETC to win at the Air Force-level this year.

In 2006, Sergeant Falvo cross-trained from personnel to broadcasting. In his new career field he has been assigned to Armed Forces Network at Lajes Field, Azores, and in Iraq.  He has been stationed here since July 2009.

"Sergeant Falvo is one of the best broadcasters I've ever worked with in my almost 30-year Air Force career," said Robert Martinez, 17th Training Wing Broadcasting Services Supervisor. "The broadcasting section is a six-person office, but deployments and other manning situations left us with just Sergeant Falvo the past six months and he was still able to produce award-winning products. If I was left with just one person, I couldn't have chosen a better Airman to work with then Sergeant Falvo."

These winning stories and others by Sergeant Falvo can be viewed on Goodfellow's website, www.goodfellow.af.mil.