Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Digitally Resurrecting the 1957 Wyoming 4A Football Finals

Thanks to a high school classmate who was able to digitize ancient silent movie footage of the 1957 Wyoming 4A Football Finals and Semifinals, my dad has been reliving his glory days as a high school quarterback for the Powell Panthers. This evening after watching both games on DVD, I asked if he’d like to share these videos on YouTube. He said yes. It’s a blast from the past, watching Wyoming high school football from 1957 in Rawlins and Torrington.

1957 Wyoming 4A Football Finals

What fun to see how exciting it is for my dad to see these game films after all these years!

On a technical note, I used the free application Handbrake on my Macbook Pro to rip these four DVD chapters into M4V files (video files) which could be shared on YouTube.

Encoding 1957 Wyoming 4A Football Finals from DVD to M4V for YouTube _ iTunes

In addition to posting these to YouTube, I copied them over to my dad’s laptop and iPad, so he can enjoy them at will on multiple screens now!

Syncing Movies to iTunes

If you want to check out this NOW digitized Wyoming football history from 1957, you can do so on my Dad’s YouTube channel! Interestingly, the film from the semifinals is in color, but the finals was filmed in black and white.

Hat tip to Biff Beck for digitizing the analog versions of these films. I interviewed Biff in 1999, when he was the director of technology for Cody Public Schools, and published the results in TCEA’s TechEdge magazine in the article, “Affordable and Efficient: The Cody Model of Technology Deployment.” Biff continues to demonstrate educational technology leaders in Wyoming are extremely innovative! 🙂

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6 responses to “Digitally Resurrecting the 1957 Wyoming 4A Football Finals”

  1. Kristi Espineira Avatar

    Those are wonderful! If people are having a hard time finding places that convert those old films, http://pixorial.com is a great source and also offers archiving and simple online editing tools. And yes this is a shameless plug for my husband’s company 🙂 but I just think it’s a great resource for educators, students and others. Those old videos can bring so much joy!

  2. Patrick Schmiedt Avatar
    Patrick Schmiedt

    Very cool. Thanks for doing this! I posted a short thing on my blog at wyoming-football.com to help spread the word.

    –patrick

  3. Curby Alexander Avatar

    This is really cool, Wes. As a fellow Wyomingite, I can appreciate this. I went to Natrona County High School, but it may have still been called Casper High when your dad was in school. This is a great way to relive and share memories, as well as build community.

  4. Neil Hokanson Avatar

    Wow Wes, I didn’t realize we had a Wyoming connection! I am originally from Star Valley (Thayne – where the cheese factory is/was). It was great to watch these clips from around the time my Dad was in high school as a Star Valley Brave…

  5. Wesley Fryer Avatar

    Outstanding, Neil! I’m glad to have this opportunity to disclose my Wyoming roots on my dad’s side of our family. Glad you enjoyed these videos. This was REALLY a lot of fun to share together with my dad. 🙂