News Channel 4 always has been a part of my life. My dad watched it.
I grew up with Linda Cavanaugh and Bob Berry Sr.
I loved the McCain brothers. They spoke at our high school graduation. I was elated.
We toured the KFOR station in Oklahoma City during a college field trip, and I got an up-close, personal view of David Payne and Kevin Ogle.
I met Lance West and Meg Ryan before a Society of Professional Journalists banquet one year. They even stopped us afterwards and asked us how we did. I was star-struck !
One of my favorite anchors from the early 1990s was Devin Scillian. I not only watched him loyally in Oklahoma but also in Nebraska when he was anchoring for the NBC affiliate that served the Kimball, Neb. area in the mid-1990s.
I was about a year into my first job out of college at the Junction City Daily Union when I spotted a story about him in the paper. Our Assistant Managing Editor Robin Goldman had written it. Robin was a brilliant writer who rarely ever graced the pages of our good paper with her works, so when I saw her byline, I was anxious to check out the occasion that landed her name on the front page.
It was a book signing by Devin Scillian … Junction City High School graduate Devin Scillian.
“Could this be the same Devin Scillian?” I thought. “Surely, there is only one Devin Scillian.”
I almost squealed (Ok, I did squeal) as I flitted across the room reading the rest of the story. I skidded to a stop at Robin’s desk.
“Is this the newscaster Devin Scillian? From Oklahoma City Devin Scillian?” I begged for more information. There was no photo accompanying the story.
“I don’t know,” she said casually. “He went to high school here. He wrote a children’s book.”
“Did you meet him? Do you know him? Are you going to the book signing?” I could not understand why she was not as excited as I was about this man.
“I guess,” she said. “I talked to him on the phone.”
“You did?” I was so jealous. “I would have looooooved to have interviewed him.”
“Why would you want to interview him?” She looked puzzled and gave me a baffled tilt of the head as she asked her question.
Robin still wasn’t getting it. She had grown up in the area, so to her, Devin Scillian was a hometown boy who wrote a children’s book. It was nice news, but nothing a girl from Oklahoma should go gaga over.
“Devin Scillian was one of my favorite news anchors in Oklahoma!” I was about to burst at the seams. “I can’t believe you talked to him on the phone!”
“Oh,” she said, still not too terribly excited about my excitement. “I’ll tell you what. I’m supposed to interview him again on Friday for a feature story. I’ll let you do it if you want.”
I couldn’t get his information fast enough.
I went to his parents’ house that Friday, met his lovely family and interviewed him. He rewarded me with an autographed book and poster of his first children’s book, “Fibblestax.” I still have them both nestled away safely.
I enjoyed reading “Fibblestax” to all my children, and they enjoyed reading it to me, but it doesn’t get to mix with the collection of all our other children’s books. It sits on the “big book” shelf alongside fellow Great American literary works and classic English novels. It is prized.
The story about Devin Scillian and his first book appeared on the “People Page” of the Sunday paper on May 7, 2000. The “People Page” was sort of a big deal because it was the front page of our Sunday special section. It also was in full color and took up the entire page – no ads, just words and photos and freedom for daring composition. I loved the “People Page.”
I had not thought about that feature story in a long time, but it has been one of my favorites. I found it today in a paper bag I left years ago at my mom’s house. How happy it made me. Yes, I even teared-up a little.
The story really isn’t that long, so I’m sharing it. I wish I could scan the photos somehow, but you’ll just have to enjoy the photo of the photos on Facebook.
A Man of Many Words
Journalist with JC roots releases 1st children’s book
Story by Korina Atchley
Photos by Claudia Ponce
Why does bacon sizzle?
And why do eggs go splat?
And who says horses’ hooves
go clip clop, not clackety clat?
No one can answer those questions.
Though, millions have surely tried.
Perhaps, a man could find the answers
with Devin Scillian by his side.
Devin Scillian began his venture with words in a Junction City high School English class.
Pressing pen to paper, he scrawled out his first children’s story.
More stories followed, of course. He found ways to bring his thoughts to life and preserve them for others to cherish. He could make wheat fields grow in winter or view the Milky Way at noon. He could make crickets chirp and waves slosh without leaving his living room.
“In some ways, writing kind of comes easily for me,” Scillian said.
Although the words seemed to flow on to the paper, Scillian soon began wondering about words and why things sound like what they are named, like “the way that bacon sizzles, or the way an egg splats or the sway a horse clip clops.”
His insight led him to his first published children’s book and a little boy named Fibblestax. In many ways, Scillian revealed some of his own personality traits with his creation of Fibblestax.
In the book, named after the title character, Fibblestax is tasked with giving names to all things great and small. He has a relationship with words that enables him to label creatures, weather conditions and even emotions. Words are his co-pilot.
For Scillian, words have been his co-pilot, too. They have guided him into three professions that envelop his life – journalism, children’s writing and song writing.
A news anchor for WDIV-TV, the NBC affiliate in Detroit, Scillian said writing has attributed to his success as a journalist.
“My writing always seemed to have caught the attention of news directors and general managers,” he said. “Writing is my favorite part of what I do on television.”
Even though writing his newscasts is Scillian’s specialty, he finds flaws in his profession.
“It airs, and then it’s gone,” he said. When a person writes a book, “it’s always going to be there.”
Still, he reveres his dominant career choice.
“Being a journalist is my profession,” he said. “I really do have a love for it. I don’t see myself quitting television because I really enjoy writing the first draft of history, which is what journalism is.
“The one thing that connects journalism with music, with writing children’s books – it’s all about storytelling. Hopefully, I can find a way to do both.”
So far, he’s managed to intermingle his careers smoothly. He has released two albums and recently took some time off to promote “Fibblestax.” One of his stops was at Lee’s Books ‘N Such, 505 N. Washington St.
With two to three book signings scheduled each week for the next month, however, he is learning that writing a book entails more than just inking words onto paper.
“I didn’t quite realize how much I was biting off,” he said. “So far, it’s been just a little bit overwhelming. The fact that my promotional schedule is full is a good sign.”
It’s such a good sign that recently he landed a second book deal with Sleeping Bear Press in Chelsea, Mich. “’A’ is for America” will be released in the fall.
Scillian will juggle his second book tour just like his first – with his family. The way he and his wife met is almost a fairytale in itself.
On his first day of class at Junction city High School, Scillian said he sat in theater class three rows behind “this really tall, pretty girl that I even asked a few of my friends about later in the day.”
Before the end of the school year, Scillian and Corey Stanesic were dating. Ironically, the Scillians moved to town from Fort Riley and became neighbors with the Stanesics.
“I married the girl next door,” Scillian joked.
Together, he and the girl next door have four children, Griffin, 11; Quinn, 9; and Madison and Christian, 4.
