I sat down with Jon Fosselman, one of our newer employees, to find out more about him and why he joined Idaho Public Television. He’s a Special Projects Producer for our Production Department and he fills in wherever he’s needed. “I’m kind of a relief pitcher here. I’ve been doing everything from helping to film with Idaho Experience and Outdoor Idaho. In addition, I’ve been working with GBH in Boston to help produce something for Molly of Denali, like a little interstitial (short video) that goes in between the programs.” Jon has helped with some videography for the Secretary of Education and the Idaho Secretary of State as well.
Jon grew up in South Carolina, but his family was originally from Ohio, near the “Hollers” of West Virginia. “As soon as I left, they moved back to Ohio. They didn’t like the heat in South Carolina.” He’s lived in Idaho a couple of times before for different jobs and kept getting drawn back to the Gem State. “When I left South Carolina, it was first to work with KTFT in Twin Falls, and that was making the jump from news as a News Editor, and an entertainment show that I worked for and marketing. I did commercial production with KTFT.” Jon left that job, but he really loved the area. He moved back to Idaho for another job that wasn’t a good fit, but when he saw an opening at Idaho Public Television last year, he threw his hat in the ring. “The whole time I’d been in Idaho, I’d heard about IdahoPTV…I remember watching Outdoor Idaho…I remember thinking, ‘That’s really the work that I want to do.’”
Jon’s first assignment took him to Eastern Idaho. “They threw me in the green beater van with the older camera and sent me out to Idaho Falls with Kris Millgate (one of our freelance producers) and spent about a week, just running around filming things. We were in Island Park. We were around the Idaho National Laboratory, trying to film pronghorn (antelope) out there. We were down by Bear Lake and some of the areas down there.”
The reason he moved back to Idaho, besides working here, was for the outdoors. “I love backpacking, hiking, road cycling, mountain biking. Just this winter, at the tender age of 36, I decided to do my first winter up on the mountain and learn how to ski.” And he’s glad to be back in the Gem State for the great snacks, as well. “Something I found the last time I was in Boise and it’s made its way back to the East Coast, is Dot’s Pretzels. They are dangerous,” Jon shared. “It’s the MSG. It’s like crack; you just can’t stop eating them.” Besides Boise, Jon is a big fan of Stanley and the Sawtooth Mountains. “I was just there last weekend…we went for Winterfest…riding the rafts downhill and just checking out all of the events happening downtown. Especially during the summer, too, it’s just gorgeous out there.” He enjoys audio books while he drives, and then buys the book to put on his shelves.
Jon remembers watching PBS Kids growing up. “It’s one of the reasons I got into public television. We didn’t have cable or anything until I was much older. And so a lot of it growing up was just Wishbone, Arthur, The Magic School Bus,” he says. “I just watched all of that when I was a kid.”