With no prior experience, a first-time writer and director has taken the idea that has filled his heart since an elementary school history class, and turned it into a feature film. Freedom’s Path will soon hit the big screen nationwide in honor of Black History Month. I had the privilege of interviewing Brett Smith about this portrayal of friendship and courage. Brett has been my friend since childhood, and told me about his movie idea twelve years ago, when he began the film’s creative process. Later this weekend, I’ll post the full news story.

The Buffalo Bills’ famously exuberant fans have been one of my TV news beats for the past three seasons. To support the Bills in this Sunday’s playoff game, I have prepared some of my favorite clips for you from those reports. In this video, I even show you how to do the Bills Shout Dance, so you can cheer on the team throughout the game! This weekend’s showdown between the Bills and the Bengals is especially poignant because the two teams have not met since Bills’ safety, Damar Hamlin, went into cardiac arrest following an impact during their last game together. Since then, I have been so touched by the fact that no matter which team fans root for, people around the world have come together to show their love and support for Damar. According to his doctors, though the road to recovery will be long, he is showing no signs of neurological damage. I have heard people from various walks of life say that this miraculous news has given them hope when struggling with their own challenges.

In this exclusive interview, the man who is both a United Nations’ Southeast Asia Advocate and a national civil engineer for the Philippines joined me for a frank discussion. Mark Fredelben Gomez Gravillo candidly described his people’s “fear of China,” love of country, and recovery from devastating super typhoons.

The pictures on the left are from one of the first news stories I created after moving to Western New York. Airing mere months before the pandemic began, it covered redevelopment plans for a circa 1931 food terminal in East Buffalo. Viewers sent encouraging messages asking for more news about the area and its development plans. That led me to many stories and friendships on the East Side.

After the mass shooting at Tops supermarket, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal talking about disinvestment in the area. Though the writeup contained valid concerns, residents reached out to me saying that they wished it had acknowledged their hard work in recent years to redevelop East Buffalo. Since I know those projects well, they asked if there was anything I could do about that. These people mean so much to me that I wrote a letter to the WSJ editor and it was published. You can read about the efforts to revitalize this area here.

Creating this story was an adventure! I filmed it with my cell phone in four cities and two countries, just after the 5,500-mile-long border between them opened to citizens of both nations after a shutdown of almost two years. My quest was to determine the economic and personal impact of this once-in-history phenomena. To uncover the facts, I traveled through both countries in rain, wind, snow and sun! During the short time since my report aired, restrictions on both sides of the border have further changed with the rise and fall of Covid-19 variants, and differences of opinions concerning governmental regulations. My full story is on SpectrumLocalNews.com