[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 18299]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO WCAX TELEVISION

 Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I pay tribute today to WCAX 
Channel 3, the CBS affiliate based in South Burlington, VT, which will 
reach a milestone this month when it marks its 50th year of 
broadcasting.
  WCAX has documented many changes in my home State during that half-
century, some for the better, some not. But Channel 3's crucial role in 
chronicling history cannot be overstated. From its coverage of high 
school baseball to State House politics, Channel 3 gives Vermonters the 
news they need. The station's patriarch, Stuart ``Red'' Martin, is as 
much a part of the Vermont fabric as the State's dairy farms and dirt 
roads.
  Vermont had the distinction of being the very last State in the 
Nation to have its own television station when WCAX aired its first 
broadcast from a transmitter at the top of Mount Mansfield, according 
to the authors of the recently released book, ``Freedom and Unity: a 
History of Vermont.''
  In this book, the authors write, ``By then, the image of Vermont both 
within and outside the State as an isolated, rural, museumlike, 
homogeneous, and unchanging society was becoming increasingly difficult 
to maintain.'' Indeed it was, and Channel 3 was there to broadcast 
Vermont's changing image into living rooms from one end of the State to 
the other.
  Today, Channel 3 has a little more competition than it did back in 
1954, but it maintains the distinction of being ``Vermont's Own.'' Over 
the years, Channel 3 has amassed a variety of impressive awards too 
numerous to list. But suffice it to say that many a political career 
has risen or fallen based on Channel 3 news coverage, and some of us 
are better off for it. Now if they would just purge that old file tape!
  Thank you, Channel 3, for being there through all these years of 
public service--from helping farmers through the Agriculture Extension 
Service to the advent of satellite hookups--to capture Vermont's rich 
and unique history.

                          ____________________