Enterprise The Idaho
Oneida County's News Since 1879 Malad City, Idaho
February 10, 2022 |Vol. 142 No. 06
Norman Jaussi Reflects on nearly a half century of TV in Oneida County
By the time Norman Jaussi moved to Malad in 1960, he already had an impressive amount of experience with communications technology. Along with training with the Signal Corps at San Luis Obispo for the US army, Jaussi also served a 3 year LDS mission in Germany. “It was wonderful, but it was very cold. Very cold,” Jaussi explains. “When I first got there, the snow was three feet deep. Lots of the towns were still bombed out, and of course heating was hard to come by over there.” Between the those two experiences, Jaussi developed a keen sense of making a lot out of a little. In fact, learning to deal with such privation and a lack of infrastructural resources was something of a boon to
Jaussi in his later career, as one of the themes of his work on the translator system in Oneida county has been a need to build systems from the ground up with very little outside help or materials. Over the courseof his long tenure in the valley, Jaussi has had to engineer seemingly impossible solutions out of seemingly nowhere. After his return stateside, Jaussi pursued a formal education in the rapidly growing technology fields of the 1950s at ISU, where he pursued a degree in electronics in 1956. “That was a breeze for me,” he says. “Of course, I had already had so much practical experience in the field it wasn’t a stretch.” During his time in Pocatello, Norm was responsible for setting up
the original broadcast for Pocatello’s channel 6 using a “broken transmitter” that simply needed a minor mechanical fix to bring to full working order. “That wasn’t the problem. The problem was more rattlesnakes than you can imagine.” At one point in the mid- 1970s, the county commissioners asked Jaussi to look into establishing a way to bring television broadcast signals into the valley. At the time, the only signals that were available in Malad came from northern Utah, and could only be reliably picked up in certain areas and under certain weather conditions. After looking all around the valley for a location where a reliable signal could be found, the hard work began. “After a signal is found,
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there’s a lot more to do,” Jaussi says. Jaussi’s active FCC license cleared the first hurdle, but the more significant ones involved arranging for the purchase of the property on which to construct the broadcast station, as well as the construction itself. The construction was aided in large part by Marvin Hess, and the land was ultimately leased from the Idaho State Landlord at a cost of $100 a year for ten years. The County Commissioners also created a TV taxing district which charged landowners $10 a year to help underwrite expenses. Since there are no conNORMAN JAUSSI REFLECTS ON A HALF CENTURY OF TV IN ONEIDA COUNTY On Page 3
Norm Jaussi looks through a stack of documents spanning more than 45 years
Invention Convention Brings Bright Ideas to Malad Elementary School Last Thursday, Malad Elementary School held its first ever “Invention Convention,” replacing the Science Fair of the past with a chance for students to display their problem-solving ideas for the public. This year, the 4th and 5th grade students both participated in the event, which was well attended by parents of both grades. The inventions ranged from the mostly whimsical to the eminently practical. “There were some of them that I told the kids, ‘that’s a great idea—you could actually sell that!’,” said Principal Sarah McIntyre. The idea behind the Invention Convention was to give students a way to apply a range of skills to problem-solving practical problems. The inventions themselves involved a variety of engineering, science, and math problems. The displays involved both written communication skills as well as illustrative art work. The project as whole emphasizes the STEM curriculum (Science Technology Engineering and Math). In addition to coming up with the ideas themselves, students also needed to go through the process of determining whether their ideas already existed, and adjust them accordingly to avoid intellectual infringement. As parents milled about the second floor of the school building, the students were on hand to walk all those interested through the nature of their projects. “It’s a Child Separator,” Evelynn Ward explained, pointing to a
carboard trifold demonstrating how a cushioned divider could be used to keep ‘your brother and sister from bothering you’ on car rides. “I thought of this idea when I was in the car in Hawaii. My siblings were yelling at each other and being so annoying. Also, I was in the car and spilled my food all over. It was awful,” her written display explains. The Child separator also includes a table to prevent such food disasters. “I thought it would be a good idea,” Evelynn said. And indeed, many of the inventions on display were good ideas designed with just those types of annoying real-world issues in mind. Seth Huckaby’s “Magnetic Cup and Straw” was designed to overcome the frequent issue of spilling. The cup rests atop a magnetic bar to prevent it from tipping over, and comes with an attached straw. Rebecca Nolan Nelson invented a “Squeeze Brush,” a toothbrush which contains refillable toothpaste in the handle, so that she doesn’t have to look around for a tube of toothpaste or share one with messy people. Wheeler Smith invented a “Magic Charger” that will charge by kinetic energy while inside your pocket, so that you can charge while walking around. June Talbot’s “Kid Lock” uses the idea of Roman numerals as part of its lock system to INVENTION CONVENTION BRINGS BRIGHT IDEAS TO MALAD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL On Page 2
Parents and their inventors gather for the Invention Convention at MES
Draven Wise and his "Foldotron"
KaDee Kim Daniels and her "Bracelet and Art Clean!" display