News release Public Information Office  SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu Spring 2004 news releases Public Information home News archive Contact: Christina Chapple Date: 6/2/05   SOUTHEASTERN CHANNEL WINS SILVER, BRONZE REMI AWARDS AT WORLDFEST        HAMMOND -- For the second consecutive year, programs produced by the Southeastern Channel, Southeastern Louisiana University’s educational access channel, have been honored with prestigious Remi Awards presented at the recent Worldfest-Houston International Film and Video Festival.         “ArtWorks,” a talk show about outstanding north shore artists, won a Silver Remi Award for “Interview Program” in the Television/Cable Programming competition. The 30-minute episode featured award-winning novelist Tim Gautreaux, a Southeastern writer-in-residence. Produced by Rick Settoon, general manager of the Southeastern Channel, the piece was edited by channel staff member Pelle Eriksson and videotaped by Eriksson and Todd Dunnington, channel operations manager.        An episode of the “Florida Parish Chronicles” entitled “St. Tammany Parish: Overcoming the Obstacles to Prosperity” won a Bronze Remi for “Information, Cultural, or Historical Program.”         The Bronze Remi for the episode marks the fourth major television award for “The Florida Parish Chronicles,” which looks at the history of the Florida Parishes. In its first year on the air, the series has also won two international Communicator Awards and a Telly Award.        The episode described St. Tammany’s rise from virtual poverty to the most prosperous parish in Louisiana. Also produced by Settoon, the program was shot and edited by Eriksson.  It was written, narrated and hosted by Sam Hyde, Ford Family Endowed Chair in Regional Studies and director of Southeastern’s Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies.        Hyde said the program depicted St. Tammany as a model for other regions seeking to overcome the challenges of rapid development.        “We concentrated our efforts on revealing the sources of St. Tammany’s emergence from a regional backwater to a site of impressive cultural and economic development,” Hyde said.  “The episode served as not merely a descriptive historical piece, but as an educational tool for other regions and policy planners to use as a guide in their own development.”         The 38th WorldFest, the third oldest film festival in North America, featured 4,500 entries from 23 different countries. Other winners in television/cable programming categories included Discovery, The Learning Channel, PBS, The History Channel, The American Masters series, Hallmark and National Geographic Television.          “This is another huge honor for the Southeastern Channel won in competition against the best in the television industry,” said Settoon. “It shows that the quality and diversity of our original programming ranks among the best in television, and it’s evidence of the hard work of our talented staff to maintain those high quality standards.”        Last year at Worldfest, the Southeastern Channel, which airs on Charter Cable Channel 18, won a Gold Remi Award for the football documentary, “Fighting Lions:  The Glory Years.”  The three-year-old channel has won 28 national and international television awards in the past year.