This year marks 70 years that
KTVB has been bringing you the p
news stories and weather to the
Treasure Valley year after year.
And to celebrate, we've been tag
a look back at some of the biggt
moments in our and Boise's history and
Idaho's history.
And today we're looking back ona
historic moment for the Gem Sta.
It was the Idaho Centennial Celebration.
News Channel 7 was there to cape
all the excitement from the gro.
And the sky so many years
ago today on Statehood Day,
take a look. In 1863,
President Abraham Lincoln signea
Congressional act making Idaho an official
territory in the US 27 years la,
President Benjamin Harrison officially
proclaimed Idaho the 43rd state
in the Union on July 3rd, 1891.
Hundred years later on July 3rd, 1990.
Idaho celebrated its Centennial with a
massive celebration in downtown Boise.
KTVB was there, bringing the Treasure
Valley and the state Wall to wall coverage.
Another thing I'll never
forget is when we. We
did the celebration of
Idaho's live Centennial.
We did 12 hours of live coverage with no
commercial breaks from noon till midnight.
We had seven different live locations.
We built three sets and we
hopscotched from event to event.
10s of thousands of Idahoans packed into
the Treasure Valley throughout the day.
It started in Nampa with historic locomotive
Centennial 844 making the trip to Boise.
I was a roving guy,
so I was up at the train depot n
the old steam locomotive came i.
The train slowly rolled into
the historic Boise depot.
It was trains like this one that
conquered Idaho's wilderness
and turned Boise into a city,
carrying dignitaries from
the past and the present.
And there must have been, I mea,
10,000 people there easily.
Andrews was on the train
coming from that for the Boise.
And I think D Start was
on the train with them.
And then I had to run back,
you know, edit a story,
put it back together,
get back in, do
a live shot. Our Centennial coms
at one of the greatest times
in the history of the street.
We're stronger than we've ever .
We have every reason to pause and celebrate.
And then from there I had to go
to the State House. You know,
do the ceremonies there, run back, edit
it? I mean, we all worked, you ,
I mean we started before noon because we had
to set up sets and you know and all that.
I mean think of that when we we
all worked almost 24 hours strat
on that and but we all loved it.
I mean every single second we ld
it and still talking about it,
you know, when we get together, it was
just madness, but. We did
something that never been done,
one of the coolest and most hisc
parts of the event, at least for KTVB.
We got the helicopter out of
King Broadcasting in Seattle.
That's the first time I
ever rode in a helicopter.
It's the first time we ever did
weather from a helicopter or any kind
of airplane or any source like .
That air coverage helped us get
footage of the 43 gun salute.
Here is a sky shot and you can see where
those guns are firing from the .
The State House parking garage,
impressive shot from from the sky and
the F4 fly over of the Capitol building.
Ladies and gentlemen, what a throw that was.
So we flew all around the city in the
celebration and so it was a lot of fun.
The celebration went on well ino
the afternoon with the original
Albertson's location building ad
baking Idaho's birthday cakes,
600 pounds of cake mix,
110 pounds of eggs and 300 pounds of icing.
Some people waited in line for an hour.
It is good. How many people
will it feed? We're looking at
7000 people. One of our goals
was to to really bring the
state together with this live
coverage of their Statehood day.
We made our coverage available o
every TV station in the state of Idaho,
regardless of affiliate,
and to every cable channel in the state. The
night ended with a fireworks sh.
I was so proud of what we did that day.
It was it was a lot of work.
It was months in the planning.
And what is so cool about
that is Minnie and Mickey
even flew in for the celebratio.
How about that?
That's a big deal, actually.
They didn't come to my birthday,
I can tell you that. Yeah, 33
years ago today on Idaho State Hood Day,
that was the scene. 12 straight hours
of uninterrupted coverage. Thats
a long time. That is a long tim.
But you know what?
They had so much fun just watching the
joy in all the people in that s.
I mean, the anchors, the report,
the people in the community
just enjoying being together
and celebrating 100 years.
Some familiar faces there. Rick still working
right over there. How about
this here? Good for him.