Reflections 12 hours before the Emmy Awards Gala on June 21, 2026 …

Tonight we will learn just how much buzz we get at the 68th Emmy Awards Gala in Bethesda, Maryland.

BUZZ is up for 5 awards, but it is not false modesty to say that I am honored just to be nominated.

Let me rephrase: I do not expect to come home with a trophy.

Would it be nice? Of course! But when I look at my fellow nominees — full-fledged networks like WSLS and WDBJ7 and public television companies like my good friends at Blue Ridge PBS and PBS Appalachia — and then multiply them across the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences – Capital Chapter comprising Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., I’m astonished to even have a seat at the table.

I know for sure that Buzz4Good is the smallest operation among the nominees. There’s my videographer extraordinaire Dan Mirolli, responsible for filming four of the nominated episodes, along with my good friend Scott Ramsburg at Roanoke Valley Television for the fifth.

And then there is me — the guy raising production money from foundation grants, corporate sponsors, and charitable donors … coordinating production details with our nonprofit stars along with the marketing professionals who are providing the “buzz” … hosting and assisting with the filming and editing the episodes … promoting their release at watch parties and on social media … rinse, recycle, repeat.

I love everything about the process, and I’m proud of the work we have done highlighting and helping nonprofit organizations that do so much, and in so many ways, for our communities. But I am also realistic about our odds for an Emmy.

Now, if Buzz4Good does get called tonight, I’ll be buzzing from the mountaintop. But having the good fortune and the support of friends and fans to be able to do this the last six years? That’s all the award I need.

Reflections 12 hours after the Emmy Awards Gala …

Well, even with my realistic expectations, last night’s Emmy Awards gala was a bit of a buzz kill.

5 nominations. 0 trophies.

It started so promising! In a ballroom that would’ve envied Trump, packed with more than a hundred tables of journalists and producers from the biggest broadcast stations across Virginia, Maryland and DC, I was seated at Table 4 — the closest to the stage.

How thoughtful were the judges! They obviously didn’t want to tire me making so many trips to accept all my awards!

Alas, the only body part worn out after the four-hour ceremony was my backside from nonstop sitting. My hands did get a workout applauding my good friends Blue Ridge PBS and PBS Appalachia at Table 3, which nearly collapsed under the weight of all their hardware.

So I am settling now for “Emmy Award nominated TV show” … because this gala is my last. The journey takes too much time, energy and resources that could be expended helping another nonprofit on BUZZ.

Rather than entering another Emmy Awards, later this year I’ll launch my own competition — the ”Buzzy” — the winner of which will be featured in a new episode in 2027. Stay tuned for details.

Until then, continued thanks to you all for being in my hive and supporting our mission. And if you’re in Roanoke this Wednesday, please join me at my BUZZ Watch Party stars Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center. We’ll all be winners there!

Dear Hive:

Today is my 55th birthday so I ask for your indulgence by reading all the way through.

I was recently asked by a friend what’s the mission of BUZZ.

Well, I answered, to produce a TV show that highlights and helps nonprofits.

That’s the “what,” he replied. But what is the “why?”

Why, indeed?

To help nonprofits do more and better? Sure.

So that the lives of more people and more communities are enhanced? Yep.

Selfishly, to create something meaningful and be my own boss? Absolutely.

But the more I contemplate this question, the more I think the answer revolves around promoting a worldview in which we value “profit” not by how much noise or fame or power or influence or money we generate, but how much good we do.

In their purest forms, nonprofits are the best expressions of this. They shelter the homeless, heal the uninsured, rebuild communities hit by disaster or poverty, teach kids to dance and paint and sing, rescue abused animals, re-home immigrants and resettle refugees, promote local business, help adults with disabilities and veterans with PTSD, preserve history and culture, care for nature, and on and on and on.

Sure, the folks working for them deservedly earn a paycheck, but that’s part and parcel of living in this world we’ve constructed. Just like it costs money to create each episode of BUZZ ($2500-$10,000).

But the motivation behind this work isn’t the scale of your wallet but the size of your heart.

So today I invite you to journey more deeply into this worldview. Do something more for that nonprofit you care about, and reply here with the name of the org.

Or let me know which of these nonprofits that have recently reached out to me deserves some buzz:

• 3 Balloons
• Renaissance Music Academy
• Camp Easterseals
• EnCircle
• Friends of Washington Park
• Camp Bethel
• She Leads Tomorrow
• Renovation Alliance

And if you’re inspired, donate to my work so we can bring them to the screen.

A scripture passage increasingly dear to me comes from the Gospel of John: “We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.”

It’s still daylight, friends. There’s a lot of goodness in the world, but a lot of work to be done as well.

Let’s get buzzing!

Michael Hemphill
BUZZ Creator

Dear Hive:

I am buzzing to announce that BUZZ has received five EMMY nominations!

• Franklin County NAACP’s “Raising the Shade” – Documentary Historical, produced in partnership with Dan Mirolli Photography and Virginia Tech’s Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia.
• Greater Williamson Road Area Business Association – Business/Consumer (Long Form Content), produced in partnership with Roanoke Valley Television and Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge.
• Masterpiece Alliance – Diversity/Equity/Inclusion (Long Form Content), produced in partnership with Dan Mirolli Photography and Robertson Family Foundation
• Elimisha Kakuma – Education/Schools (Long Form Content), produced in partnership with Dan Mirolli Photography and Cranwell Family Foundation
• Angels of Assisi – Societal Concerns (Long Form Content), produced in partnership with Dan Mirolli Photography

BUZZ is a program of the American Advertising Federation of Roanoke and broadcast on Blue Ridge PBS.

The nominations were announced Wednesday night by the Capital Emmys Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which represents all TV producers broadcasting within Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. The Awards Gala is June 20 in Bethesda.

Stay tuned, and as always, thank you for supporting of our mission to highlight and help the real award winners of our communities – our nonprofit organizations!

Always buzzing,
Michael Hemphill
BUZZ Creator

We’re buzzing to announce that 100+ Women Who Care of the New River Valley has awarded us a grant to fund production of a new episode starring Calfee Community & Cultural Center!

This is our second BUZZ made possible by 100+ WWCNRV. Thanks to the group’s generosity, in 2023 we highlighted and helped Literacy NRV on our show, which remains one of our favorite episodes. We look forward to sharing Calfee’s inspiring story this summer on Blue Ridge PBS!

About Calfee:
From 1894 to 1966, the Calfee Training School educated African American children in Pulaski, VA. Faced with severe underfunding from Jim Crow segregation, the Calfee Training School became a community, helping children and their families reach their full potential. The Calfee Community & Cultural Center is revitalizing the positive aspects of this legacy by supporting all of Pulaski County’s children, families, and organizations, building a stronger future for the region.

About 100+ Women Who Care of the New River Valley:
Members come from all walks of life and varying financial backgrounds who are dedicated to supporting local community in the New River Valley: “As individuals, it is challenging to make a meaningful impact in our community, but, as a group, we have the ability to contribute to the growth of our community in ways that we never thought possible!”

Please join us in thanking these amazing women!

My least favorite job interview question: “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

As a peripatetic professional who claims at least 10 different jobs in my 32 years of post-college work, I am contemplating this question as I wrap up year 5 of Buzz4Good.

It was the start of the pandemic when we started rolling cameras in Spring 2020. The world was a fearful and isolating place. We masked and social distanced and sanitized as best we could while still trying to capture the beautiful humanity of those nonprofits – and the marketing pros willing to risk their own health – in those early episodes.

If you’d asked me then where I saw myself in 5 years, I would have replied, “I’ll be lucky to make it 5 months.”

I didn’t have a long-term strategic plan … still don’t. I lived by the mantra first uttered by my friend Bruce C. Bryan: “Head down, keep grinding. Head up, keep looking for opportunity.”

So we kept producing BUZZ episodes as that foundation grant or corporate sponsor came through … and sometimes when it didn’t. In 2021 WFIR offered an hour time slot on Saturday afternoons, so the Buzz4Good! radio show/podcast was born. My mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2023 (she’s in remission now), so I took BUZZ on the road to my hometown of Birmingham to highlight Alabama nonprofits while helping my sisters with Mom’s care. Around that time, my wife’s cousin Rob Orthwein, a livestream technical producer, moved to Roanoke, and so early this year our BUZZ Live! talk show began.

Last night we previewed our 78th episode to wrap up 2025. It stars Angels of Assisi and airs Dec. 3 on Blue Ridge PBS. By chance – or fate – it features development director Carol Jessee, who back in 2020 served as executive director of Southwest Virginia Ballet, the star of our very first episode. And it features Wordsprint owner Bill Gilmer, who also donated marketing assets to SVB in Episode 1.

Has BUZZ achieved the exposure and EMMYs I believe it merits? No. Has it gotten easier to raise money to fund this work? Nah. But I have secured $60,000 in grants for production in 2026 in both Virginia and Alabama, and have begun conversations about buzzing in Nashville … stay tuned.

I still have no idea where I see myself in 5 years. But I am looking back on where I was 5 years ago and saying, “Not bad, Michael. Not bad.”