Today on ABC 4 News, we’re running a fantastic year-ender piece that our editor Kirk Colton put together. I gave him a few suggestions on what important stories to put into the story, then turned him loose — and it turned out really well. Kirk is that kind of guy — very creative, very dependable.

This piece brings back a lot of memories for me: long afternoons of waiting for press conferences during Crandall Canyon, late nights running around the newsroom during Amber Alerts, feeling tremendous sadness the morning I sat down at my desk to find out President Faust had died, feeling triumphant during awesome live shots from Milford Flats. A lot of these stories broke on weekends, and the vast majority of them came from shows that I helped produce.

The major stories of the year were all pretty heavy, especially Trolley Square and Crandall Canyon. But as I look back on it all, I’m really proud of what we did this year. Day after day, the people I work with turned out high-quality stories that I was pleased to bring to the people of Utah, and I think we did a pretty good public service. I watched the story at various stages of completion several times over the last couple of days, and every time I see it, I get emotional. Good job, Kirk, for capturing what we did over 365 days in just over 6 minutes of video.