In instructor Dan Devine’s first hour class, 13 out of 16 students are staring at their phones during WOBN. But when the “We are WO” intro starts, 11 of these 16 students begin watching intently. Whether it’s the upbeat music or the fact that they’ll see their friends on the news that catches their attention, there must be a reason they continue watching. The “We are WO” series shows off everyone’s unique talents, not just the best.

  “The idea started with a professional photographer photographing regular people about regular stories. I learned about that at a conference and I thought that we could do stuff like that here,” Instructor Lindsay Walcott said, explaining where the idea for the “We are WO” series stemmed from.

  The point of the “We are WO” series is not to show off WO’s most outstanding and popular people; it’s to show that everyone at WO has a story whether it be small or big: “It’s like everybody has a story, they are not supposed to be popular or influential, more like the people that people don’t know about,” Walcott said.

  Since everyone at WO has a story, anyone can be picked to be featured. Videographers can choose to be paired up with a student or choose their own. With over 2,000 students at WO, new friendships bloom from the production of the “We are WO” series. “I know some people did theirs on their best friends, but I’ve encouraged many of my students to come up with an idea and make the initial contact with their feature, to get out there,” Walcott said.

  Many students admit they think that some of the talents shown off in the “We are WO” series aren’t extraordinary, but they aren’t supposed to be: “We just want to show off people who are unique yet average,” Walcott said.

  A lot of work has gone into the “We are WO” episodes that have been made this year; over 100 episodes were produced. “We continue to receive suggestions for ‘We are WO’s’ and we will take those ideas into next year, so even though all of the ‘We are WO’s’ for this year have been created, we will continue to take suggestions,” Walcott said. Make sure to check out all of the “We are WO” episodes on the WOBN online YouTube page and submit your suggestions at http://www.wobnonline.com.