Wiregrass Times

Paige Ray has been named Television Production Coordinator for TROY TrojanVision effective Jan. 3.

Ray fills the position vacated by her former supervisor Aaron Taylor, TrojanVision Television Manager, who held the job for the last 20 years.

Ray graduated from TROY in 2019 with her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism and again in 2020 with her master’s degree in strategic communications. A native of Elba, Alabama, she came to TROY as a Leadership Scholar and a graphic design major. By the end of her freshman year, she became the “poster child for TrojanVision,” she said.

“I always hung out in the hallway close to the studio, and I was really shy and I didn’t talk to anyone. Then one day, Aaron Taylor came around and said they needed someone to do the weather,” she recalled. “I was like a deer caught in the headlights, but I said sure and he showed me how to do it. Everything kind of snowballed from there and I realized, ‘Hey, I’m really good at this,’ so I kept coming back and really got involved and then I was here all the time.”

During her time at TrojanVision, Ray acted as Student News Director and was involved in every aspect she could be. 

“Paige was an amazing student news director when she was in school and went out into the professional world and did great work. I knew she was the type of person we would want to bring back to take over supervising TrojanVision News,” Taylor said. “It is a good feeling when we can bring back a member of the TrojanVision family. As an alumna of TrojanVision, Paige has pride in what we do here, and I know she will do an amazing job in preparing the next generation of TROY broadcasters.”

After graduating in 2019, Ray served as evening news anchor at WDHN in Dothan, Alabama, for nearly 3 years before moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she acted as reporter, weekend morning anchor and digital producer. She and her husband, Matt Ray, also a TROY graduate from the Dothan Campus, moved to Tennessee for a brief stint before Taylor contacted her about the job opening. 

“We’d only been in Tennessee for a few months before I got a call from an old friend,” she said. “The decision was really a no brainer. I loved TROY. I came back any chance I got for homecoming, all of my friends were here, my family is here and I knew the people here were good people.”

In her role as Television Production Coordinator, Ray will work directly with students to help produce the midday and nightly shows, The Week That Was, the Semester in Review recap and Trojan Talk. She said she’s excited to help continue the legacy of success TrojanVision has established. 

“Other places have awesome broadcast programs, but you don’t get the hands-on experiences that you do here. You can learn and read and watch people do the job you’re going to do, but it’s a whole different ballgame when you’re the one putting hands on equipment,” she said. “That’s what we try to do for students, and that’s what they all did for me. I’ve seen so many people who’ve benefited from this school, and the thought of getting to help continue that and continue to bring this 

Original source can be found here.