Larry Talbot programs content for MHAT-19, Channel 17
Published in the August 20 – September 2, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Robert Airoldi
Photo by Marty Cheek
Larry Talbot video-records City Council and Planning Commission meetings, as well as other events.
Larry Talbot found a second career, though it doesn’t feel much like work. The former programmer, systems analyst, IT architect and manager at IBM retired from 30 years ago, but now he’s in charge of programming content for Morgan Hill Access Television and the city’s Channel 17.
After retiring for good in 2003, he was looking for something to do and was always interested in videography, television production and new technology.
“It was, ‘Well, what am I gonna do now?’”
So he took classes at Gavilan College and began working and volunteering at Community Access Media Partners in Gilroy and Morgan Hill Access Television. When MHAT was looking for someone to do the weekly programming, he stepped up.
MHAT includes mostly locally produced shows, but will use content from Gilroy and Hollister, as well as run web pages of local agencies, nonprofits, NASA TV, Free Speech TV and movies in the public domain that he can upload for free. He and volunteer Bob Snow produce a one-hour cooking show starring a woman from Gilroy that runs every two months.
Nearly anything from Morgan Hill videomakers he will put on the air. “I’m responsible for whatever the programming is at MHAT,” he said.
A few years later, the city was looking for someone to video the Planning Commission and City Council meetings and he now runs the city’s Channel 17, uploading programming for its 24-hour schedule. He said between the two he probably puts in about 15 to 20 hours a week.
“This is me trying to get something innovative out there in Morgan Hill for Morgan Hill residents to watch,” he said. “This is my way of giving to the community.”
He often will attach a GoPro camera to his bike helmet and ride through Morgan Hill on a motor scooter, capturing images that he runs as fillers between shows.
Talbot and his wife Jean moved to Holiday Lakes Estate to get away from the suburban sprawl in San Jose. They raised two daughters who graduated from Live Oak High School.
Growing up in New Jersey and attending college at Rutgers in the late ‘60s, Talbot was at the three-day Woodstock concert. He and friends drove there and got within two miles when traffic came to a halt. They walked the rest of the way in rain and mud to get there Friday night. They didn’t leave until the rains came again Sunday afternoon. In between, Talbot said he saw some great shows, including Sly and the Family Stone at 4 a.m. one day, before falling asleep. What he didn’t realize until later was that he missed The Who’s performance. “I slept right through it,” he said. It wasn’t until years later that he realized how important the event would come to be.
“It was quite an experience,” he said. “I didn’t realize then how iconic it would become. I was wondering what they’d do the next year” to entertain half a million people.
Now it’s Talbot entertaining MHAT viewers.
Volunteering, he said, gives him a profound idea of community.
“I’ve gotten to know city staff and politicians and have become really impressed with how they attack problems,” he said. “I’ve really grown to love Morgan Hill.”
