7-11-2024 4:20am

"I AM: Proud" Knowing Boyertown High School's Telecommunications Teacher Bill Cherkasky

Lesley Misko Editor

by Jane Stahl

Ed: This article was composed from a "B Inspired" conversation Bill and I had in early 2024. I have the greatest respect for all the things Bill does for the school and the community. He's one of my favorite people--I'm so proud to know him! Publishing the article at this time fits perfectly as part of the "I AM: Proud" project.

Bill Cherkasky, Boyertown High School’s Telecommunications instructor since 2001, figured he’d end up in a TV studio somewhere after graduating from Kutztown University with a Broadcasting degree. “My dad was always interested in technology; I think we were one of the first families to have a VCR in the 70’s. My brother and I always had an interest,” he shares. “It just seemed logical that I’d end up working for a TV station.

“I had no plans to teach until I realized that what I enjoyed from my school years at Methacton was working IN the school, IN the school’s telecommunications program. And so, I returned to college to secure a teaching degree and was hired in Boyertown as a computer applications teacher at Junior High West.

“While I was there, I took over the TV Club; we covered sports, musical programs—everything. And when a position opened at the high school, the administration saw all that I was doing and invited me to make the move,” he recalls.

As BASH's Telecommunications Teacher...
Since moving to the high school, Bill has embraced the opportunity to create innovative programs and opportunities for students to develop skills they’ll need in any future broadcasting field. His students produce the high school’s morning TV show—BASH TV News—including special events videos to highlight activies, events, students, and staff. Earlier this year, he brought a student with special needs into Studio B Art Gallery as part of a series of videos shadowing him while he meets new people, places, and activities in school and in the community. (Most recently, he encouraged Sarah Campbell, one of his senior students to create a video for the current "I AM: Proud" project.)

Another project is a student-led talk show titled “Insight” that he and I developed his second year at the high school and was broadcast over a local cable TV station. In its early format, students discussed issues happening in the school and community. Other shows were themed along holidays or special events. Guests from the community were invited to participate. Its mission was to provide the community an opportunity to “meet” the young people their taxes were supporting and to introduce students to community leaders and provide the students with an understanding about community issues that affected them, along with a chance to become involved.

“Insight” has had many iterations since its inception in 2002 but has morphed into its current podcast-like format with four students anchoring the show featuring several topics. “We’ve changed formats over the years, Bill explains. “It’s been trial and error. For a few years, we made it into a magazine format with pre-produced segments with a host to connect the segments. Then we went to a live show with some segments. This format allows each student time to talk; they like that.”

Today’s “Insight” is posted on YouTube and broadcast over the district’s own cable TV station that Bill was responsible for initiating. “Since the school district involves many municipalities with all different franchise agreements, it was a nightmare to get it up and running,” he admits.

As BASH's historian...
But over his 20+ years at the high school, Bill has taken on another role beyond educator and news station founder. He’s become the high school’s historian. “I had no knowledge of the history of what is known as the ‘old’ building when I was hired or in my early years teaching there. I had never spent any time in the old building except when we recorded the school board meetings in the auditorium. My classroom and studio are located in the new building.

“But during an in-service day in 2014, for some reason, they scheduled the sessions in the classrooms of the old building. And, as I looked around the room, I recognized a certain character in the room, a warmth created, for example, from the wood frames around the old slate chalkboards, the chestnut bookcases and doors of the classroom and closets.

“I thought about the decades of students who had studied in those rooms, what they’d experienced, how they’d felt in that environment compared to the experience of today’s students in the new building where I teach, where everything is metal, cold and sterile.

“And I felt a need to learn more about the old building and to preserve what I could—the wood, especially, while it was still possible. At the time, a major renovation was in process. Engineers and architects had developed plans to gut and trash everything. There would be new trim, new doors; whiteboards would replace the old slate. The sizable walk-in closets would come down.

“And so, eager to save what I could, I had a meeting with the superintendent at the time, took him on tour of the old building—the basement where locker rooms and an older gym had once existed. I took him to the third floor and into the nice classrooms and let him imagine, as I had, what a shame it would be to tear everything out.

“He began to feel what I did and recognize that the character of the building would be lost. He understood my desire to preserve what we could and organized a meeting with the architect and construction people to discuss changes to their plans. They hated me,” he recalls. They were all set to begin their renovations, and here I was, throwing a wrench in their plans.

“But they agreed that if I could find someone to remove all the frames, restore them to the size that was needed for each classroom, and then have them installed, they would work with me. But I also had to raise the funds to cover the costs of my proposals.

“I focused on the chalkboards, the wood frames surrounding the white boards. “Happily, I found Bill Keim, a Boyertown grad, who shared the desire I had to preserve what we could, the motivation, and the craftsmanship to spare the wooden frames. In the process each frame was numbered so that it could be restored to its original space.”

As part of his preservation project, Bill worked with his students to make a documentary about the old building before renovation began. Over the course of a year, he interviewed former students and staff members and members of the community, the architect who reviewed how building would change, and spent hours at Boyertown’s Historical Society and the high school library, pouring over documents, memorabilia, and computer disks in extensive research to learn about the building’s history so he could showcase it accurately. The documentary premiered before Phase 2 of the renovation began.

And he began projects to locate new homes for the classroom doors and the blackboard’s slate. He felt bad that these pieces of history would be thrown away. In fundraising, he created and sold small pieces of the oldest slate as commemorative plaques. He arranged for sales of the auditorium seats.

The "old" auditorium from its earliest years to its present day has provided more comfortable seating at each upgrade.

Saving the slate and the chestnut wood from landfills in commemorative plaques, another of Bill's fundraising projects, gives graduates a piece of the history of Boyertown High School and a memory of their time spent in the classrooms.

The classroom doors were sold to someone renovating a home who wanted doors of authentic wood, not prefabricated materials. He had picture frames made from the wood that surrounded the doors and closets that were located in some classrooms. And today he takes pride that none of the chestnut wood that had originally sparked his desire to maintain the “warmth,” the character of the classrooms, ended up in the trash.

And he was pleased when the construction crew placed the new white boards, framed by the chestnut wood he’d preserved. “It came out really nice,” he beams.

Since then, as a result of his research, he started a segment with the help of one of his students, “Good Old Days” videos, in which he shares some of the interesting discoveries he made. His videos are available on YouTube.

He discovered, for example, that the floors of the original old building were a checkerboard of black and red tiles. They still existed in the closets after a renovation in the 1970’s when the classrooms, but not the closets, were fitted with carpet. Those closets were sizable walk-ins that stored supplies and books.

In pulling the slate off the walls, Bill says he became a “witness to history.” Apparently, as they were pulling slate off the wall, they noticed original writing from 1934 on the back of the slate. Some said “old slate—64”. Other pieces said “new slate—72” from the 1934 renovation. Bill made sure the commemorate plaques were made of the oldest slate pieces.

Recently, Bill made a presentation at a recent school board meeting. It can be viewed at https://www.smore.com/ma83j(about 5 minutes into the video of the meeting. )

As Boyertown area's storyteller highlighting current projects...
In addition to his preservation project, each year (save one), he and his students produce the annual video highlighting businesses and non-profits in the community for the annual TriCounty Chamber of Commerce Boyertown Area Progress Dinner.

In Bill’s early years, a student host would travel around to businesses and nonprofits, interview principles of those businesses or non-profits to find out what was new or being done and tie them together in a video production. In more recent years, Bill and his students have created themed narratives which have proven popular with audiences. The first theme was “Mission Impossible” in which one of the student actors was presented with the iconic envelope describing the mission. Other scripts were built referencing movies or television shows: Forrest Gump, The Wizard of Oz, American Pickers, and Back to the Future. “We’ve doomed ourselves,” Bill shares, “we can’t go back to the old ways. People love the stories.”

On his own time: a documentarian of haunted castles...
But there’s more. Bill’s personal life includes creative video projects that can be viewed on YouTube. One video project he began with his brother Seph in 2004, titled “Dark in the Park,” currently featuring 76 videos of the darker, scarier rides or “fun houses” in amusement parks and documentaries of haunted castles. One documentary of a castle in Brigantine, NJ, has recorded over 15,000 views.

They’ve created videos of amusement parks in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. The most recent 27-minute documentary, premiered January 16, 2024, and features Castle Dracula in Wildwood, New Jersey, on the 22nd anniversary of the fire that consumed the attraction. (Visit https://www.youtube.com/@DarkinthePark or darkinthepark.com)

Planning a legacy
Monetizing several YouTube channels into a fulltime second career is a potential goal for the Cherkasky brothers following Bill’s retirement from teaching. Looking to that day, Bill has already planned a special project to cap off his career as historian of Boyertown High School.

Apparently, there’s a 1934 cornerstone placed in the front of the old building, and behind the stone is a time capsule. Bill wants to remove the stone and open the time capsule in 2034 and after documenting its contents, add new items to the time capsule and reseal it for another 100 years. He’ll create a dramatic video documentary of the whole process, of course.

Capturing moments—historic and intimately personal—and people—well-known or not---is what he does and does so well. Boyertown High School and, in many ways, the Boyertown community, has Bill Cherkasky to thank for preserving its history. Its preservation is his legacy.

Update from Bill (July 12, 2024): "Dark in the Park is doing very well. The documentary we produced on Castle Dracula that premiered in January is not up to 123,000 views. It has also brought many new subscribers to our channel. We are now working on a documentary on the old Haunted Mansion at Long Branch."

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The conversation with Bill from which this article was created can be found on the "B Inspired" podcast, available on your favorite podcast platform including Anchor FM, Spotify, Google, Castbox, Breaker, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and RadioPublic, and Apple.