It’s a Wednesday morning, and Austin High School senior Amy Mallory watches the clock tick closer to 8:30 a.m — the deadline for broadcast of the Channel 4 announcements.

“There was a basketball game last night,” Mallory says and then swings the chair around to another computer, where she finds stats enough for a quick recap; then with Emily Loveland; then heads over to film the sequence with advisor Jane Carlson and slip it into the announcements time line. It’s 8:30 and the announcements for the day are finished.

“It gets pretty hectic,” Amy says, capping it with a giggle.

Channel 4 isn’t exactly a high-pressure news organization, charged with bringing you the pressing events of the day, but for AHS, it’s close enough. Through this avenue, events from the school are broadcast together with segments thought of, created and edited all by the students taking part.

“We wanted this as student-directed as possible,” Carlson said, thinking back to when Channel 4 became a reality in 2005.

Since then, the student run station has evolved into what it is with deadlines, special shows and rundowns of events students find important.

Take for instance the “Green Show,” created and run by Levi Korfhage, who has a healthy interest in video editing and video in general. Not content to simply do the same old thing, Korfhage took things one step further with the “Green Show.” In the basement of his home, Korfhage has a painted wall green so that he can film himself and place it into a one minute-sequence of popular movies. Though Levi admits he was nervous how his idea would be taken at first, it has quickly turned into one of the more popular shows on Channel 4.

“I take a popular movie, go through and find parts with cool effects,” Levi said.

For Carlson, things like what Levi and other students do is part of the draw for the channel.

“I like it,” she said. “It’s fun to see how kids go off in other directions.”

Though small, Carlson has thoughts for the future that include new computers and a TelePrompTer that would replace the rigged system of reading a word document off a computer screen.

She would also like to see a return to a partnership with KSMQ that would have students go down to the public station and help out with a live broadcast.

“We’ve had some things set up over the years where they work with KSMQ, but we don’t have the kids right now,” Carlson said.

And perhaps one step more. Animation?

“In the advanced editing class this year we added an animation program,” Carlson said. “I’m hoping a couple of those kids will take off and do some animated things for the news. Just to keep it kind of different.”