I sat down recently with Kent Burnham, one of the directors of the Friends of Idaho Public Television Board. He lives in Washington state, and I wondered how he got involved with Idaho Public Television. To answer my question, Kent uses his phrase “cosmic collisions.” He defines them as serendipitous contacts that somehow lead to unplanned opportunities. Here are his remarks.
“I grew up in a little farming community west of Spokane. I went to college, got a degree in business and picked up teaching credentials. I taught high school for three years, and I could have settled down for a comfortable teaching career. However, I had an interest in an emerging medium called public television, and I sought advice from a PBS station in Seattle. The manager listened to my story and told me I needed television experience. I decided to leave teaching and accepted a job at KIFI television in Idaho Falls. The industry was transitioning from film to videotape and from black-and-white to color. Everybody was on a steep learning curve, and it was a perfect time for me to understand the ins and outs of television.
“I thoroughly enjoyed living and working at KIFI-TV. That part of Idaho is particularly beautiful, and the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone Park were nearby. However, the education world came calling. Because I had kept ties with Eastern Washington University, where I had earned my master’s degree, I was invited to become a member of the EWU business faculty. An administrator told me that if I intended to stay in higher education, I had to have a Ph.D. I was accepted into the Ph.D. program at the University of Iowa, and from the outset I knew exactly what area I wanted my dissertation to focus on: educational television. I designed a project that involved two public broadcast stations in Iowa, and they broadcast educational programming at 8:00 a.m. for my project. My doctorate was successfully completed.
“I returned to Eastern Washington University to teach as an assistant professor, and one day I saw a flyer about Fulbright scholarships. This program is basically an international exchange service, and I sent for a list of job opportunities abroad. One job description caught my eye: a country needed someone with both business and television experience! I applied and was awarded the scholarship, spending a year at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. The university’s outreach program bounced educational content off a NASA satellite to outlying island nations, and I was brought in to evaluate that system. It was fascinating work, but Fulbright scholarships usually last only one year, and I returned to teaching at Eastern.”
With his home base established in Spokane, Kent got to work on a vacation home in North Idaho. “I converted a cabin out of a barn on Lake Coeur d‘Alene,” Kent says. “It had a dirt floor and lots of mice. When it was finally habitable, I installed a TV set; the boys, now teenagers, and I watched Idaho Public Television off air. We were definitely a ‘public TV family’ because the boys grew up watching Sesame Street. I cherish a memory involving that program. Years earlier when it came time to upgrade our home set to color, the boys and I were in a store comparing models. Sesame Street happened to be playing on the display sets. My six-year-old son was watching, and he tugged my coat and whispered, ‘Dad, Big Bird is yellow.’”
Kent appreciated being able to watch IdahoPTV programming from his cabin, and he called the station to become a monthly supporter. During the call, “we talked about why a person from Washington wanted to support IdahoPTV. I pointed out that many Washington residents who have property in Idaho watch the station. That promotional spot ultimately led to my being invited to join the board.”
It is obvious that becoming a member of Friends of Idaho Public Television has, at best, been a “circuitous route,” Kent says. “I didn’t meticulously plan it this way. Instead, my being on the board is the result of those ‘cosmic collisions’ that, sooner or later, present themselves as opportunities, and here I am.”