PORT TOWNSEND — A nationally broadcast segment on Jefferson County’s noted “music man,” Andy Mackie, will air Friday night.
CBS News’ “Assignment America” segment on Mackie will air at the end of the newscast, shown locally starting at 5:30 p.m. on KIRO-TV channel 7.
Mackie will be featured for his work in school music programs in Jefferson, Clallam and Kitsap counties.
Steve Hartman, the Assignment America host, and camera operator Kevin Graph spent two days in mid-March filming after-school music classes at Mountain View Elementary in Port Townsend and a performance by Mackie and students at Port Townsend’s Upstage Restaurant.
Mackie also was filmed giving a harmonica lesson to students at Chimacum Creek Elementary School, then helping them learn to play a simple stringed instrument.
Mackie, with help from local students, makes and distributes instruments to students and pays them to teach through his music foundation.
Hartman previewed the segment with anchorwoman Katie Couric at the end of last Friday’s newscast.
The preview included the Upstage performance with many of the students Mackie has recruited, including Katie Dwyer, a Port Townsend High School senior who gives after-school violin lessons to elementary school students as a senior project.
“I told Katie, ‘I’m going to get you up on the big screen,'” Mackie said Monday, “and there she is, right behind me.”
Mackie and his students will be performing May 7 at 7 p.m. at the Upstage Restaurant, then appear during the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts in Port Angeles on Memorial Day weekend.
