Dixie State’s D-TV To Film Rivalry Game

While the rivalry between high schools at Virgin Valley and Moapa Valley has increased in media hype over the last few years, with large journalism and radio coverage of the matchups, the one media outlet that hasn’t gotten involved in one of the Silver State’s greatest prep rivalries is television; that is until now.

This week, Dixie State College and Moapa Valley High School announced that Dixie State College’s D-TV will be bringing their “state-of-the-art” production truck down to the Moapa Valley campus on Thursday morning, to film the annual “Hammer” rivalry game as a service to both communities, and to give tours of the production truck to students.

The story of the project begins with the MVHS alumni Jon “Thunder” Oglesby. After graduating last spring, Oglesby went to the Dixie State College of Utah as a Broadcast Journalism major.

After working as the play-by-play voice for D-TV’s Game of the Week, a weekly game featuring the best prep-football matchup in St. George, Oglesby began to talk with D-TV’s station managers and engineers with the idea of bringing Dixie State’s production truck, as well as some of the crew, down to Moapa Valley High School to film the Virgin-Moapa game. And after some negotiating, both sides agreed to the idea.

“Dixie State College wanted to find a community to test this idea of taking our production truck and crew down to a community, and filming games,” said Oglesby. “So, luckily, I was able to persuade them to come to Moapa Valley.”

Besides Oglesby, Dixie State College’s Stan Everett and Cory Clyde were influential in getting the project off the ground, as well as Moapa Valley High School’s Hal Mortensen and Kim Hardy.

As part of the tour, Dixie State College will bring down the production truck to have students tour the truck, and to have students see the “behind-the-scenes” aspect of putting on a televised production. Also, Dixie State College will be donating a recorded copy of the game back to each high school, free of charge.

Besides giving the tour, Moapa Valley students will have the opportunity to work on the production of the game, with positions that range from working cameras to helping with replay.

“I think all of us are just really excited for this opportunity,” said Oglesby. “For Moapa Valley’s students to have the opportunity to work on a real, professional production, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance when you’re in college, let alone in high school.”

“For me, I’m just excited to get this game the publicity and prestige it deserves, to give Moapa Valley students this great chance, and I’m also excited to get to call the game with my good friend Matt Messer,” said Oglesby.