Okemo Valley TV’s Patrick Cody receives Rotary community service award

Patrick Cody, executive director of Okemo Valley TV, had the cameras turned on him recently when, as the guest speaker at the Ludlow Rotary Club, he was honored with the club’s annual Ludlow Community Service Award.

Rotarian Art Randolph cited the many years of coverage of area town meetings by Okemo Valley TV along with the local programming promoted by the local public TV station. “Patrick has been a leader in ensuring that area folks have an opportunity to display their talents in addition to the informative area town committee meetings they presented,” Randolph said.

In accepting the award, Cody said, “It takes a village to make all the things necessary for a public TV station to succeed. The people in Ludlow and the area were wonderful in helping us get off the ground when we started this station 20 years ago.” He believes that much of the success of the station was due to the ability of all of the people involved to adapt to new and changing circumstances.

Cody admitted that when he heard of the job opening, he didn’t even “know where Ludlow was.” He soon readied the station to open in part of the old home economics room at Ludlow Elementary School where the station spent its first 10 years. This was followed by a year in a trailer as they awaited their section of the old tank barn of the National Guard Armory to be converted for station use, where it has been for the last nine years.