I love election coverage

Columbia residents elected a new mayor, two new city council members and three school board members yesterday… they also weighed in on a number of issues, from school bonds to downtown surveillance cameras.

I spent most of the night reporting live for KBIA from mayoral candidate Sid Sullivan’s watch party at the Broadway Brewery (he didn’t win).  I’ve covered a lot of Columbia elections – five, in fact, for three different media outlets – but I was in London during the 2008 presidential election and missed my chance to do live coverage for KBIA then.  Apparently, things didn’t go as smoothly as they did last night, and I want to shout out to a few of the amazing individuals who made it a success…

- KBIA’s Sara Wittmeyer is always poised and elegant on air, but kudos to her for coordinating a couple of dozen student reporters, finishing her show, and surviving what had to have been 18 consecutive hours at the station.  This woman is amazing, and I’m proud to say I’ve had her as a mentor for the last four semesters.

- Kyle Stokes asks the best questions.  I’m still amazed I was able to answer what he threw at me with any kind of depth or clarity.  Plus, he told me I looked nice yesterday, even if he then said I looked like I was dressed up for Easter.  But seriously, we were lucky to have him in the control room, and even luckier to have stolen him from KOMU for the evening.

- KBIA’s Maureen McCollum brought the biggest smile to my face when she sent my call to the control room with a “Go get ‘em, Tiger!

- Brandon Smith arrived at Sullivan’s watch party just in time for some much-needed comic relief, which kept me going for the rest of the long night.

- And finally, Steve Weinman was nice enough to walk me back to my car when I finally got out of the station sometime after 11 p.m.

That’s not to say the rest of our reporters, editors and producers weren’t all kinds of awesome (and special thanks to a certain someone who got roped into letting my dog out halfway through).  We had more reporters going live than I think we ever have before, and the entire production was, quite simply, a success.