Eagan parishioner guides coverage of Bishop-elect Izen’s ordination

By Rebecca Omastiak

The

Catholic Spirit

Bishop-elect Michael Izen’s episcopal ordination is approaching, and Joe Conlon has been preparing. He will help broadcast the ceremony on cable television and livestream from the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul.

A parishioner of St. John Neumann in Eagan, Conlon, 52, has been a member of the Knights of Columbus for “close to 30 years.” He became involved with Town Square Television — a community television studio primarily serving the northern part of Dakota County — as a volunteer roughly 35 years ago and has been working full time with the nonprofit organization for the past 25 years. He’s now engineering manager, which, he joked, means “I take care of everything that plugs in.”

In 2005, the station helped broadcast a priestly ordination at the Cathedral, when the ordination class consisted of 15 soon-to-be priests, including Bishopelect Izen. “The capacity of the Cathedral is only so much,” Conlon said, which is why the studio offered to step in to help with coverage of priestly and episcopal ordinations and has been doing so ever since. The studio has broadcast four episcopal ordinations in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis; Bishop-elect Izen’s ordination will be the fifth.

Town Square Television studio volunteers help cover religious, parish and other local events, such as city hall meetings, local high school sporting events and graduations. The studio has a mobile production truck that volunteers take to community events. Community members also can check out equipment from the studio for their needs.

To prepare for Bishop-elect Izen’s ordination, Conlon said he’s issued a call for volunteers. “I’m always surprised and blessed that we’re able to get people who step up right away and say, ‘I’m ready to help.’” Conlon has written to Knights of Columbus councils in the archdiocese and so far, he said, 20 councils have provided financial support to help defray broadcasting and equipment costs. He arranges to secure the mobile production truck for ordination day and starts working with staff at the Cathedral to set up Town Square’s equipment.

“We’ll have about eight cameras (and eight sets of corresponding equipment) with a team of about 10 volunteers, some running cameras in the Cathedral, some working in the production truck itself doing the live switching and graphics and audio and controlling some robotic cameras,” Conlon said. Because of past events, much of the Cathedral is prewired, which helps with day-of setup, he said. Setup on ordination day will consist primarily of erecting platforms for the standalone cameras and making sure all video and audio connections are working.

Ready to help feed the crew lunch on ordination day will be Conlon’s mother, Billie Conlon, who is 85 and a member of St. Patrick in Inver Grove Heights. “She says she can’t run a camera, but she can at least feed us,” Joe Conlon said.

A partnership with Relevant Radio allows for voiceovers from Paul Sadek and Patrick Conley out of the Golden Valley studio during the episcopal ordination. “They send their audio feed back to the Cathedral and we bring that into our production,” Conlon said.

A South St. Paul native, Conlon studied electronics in high school. He went on to attend St. John Vianney College Seminary for three years, studying telecommunications at the University of St. Thomas, both in St. Paul.

His interest in Catholic television grew, especially volunteering with the Catholic Television Broadcasting Service within the Archdiocese of Castries on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. “It was kind of one of those things that happened by mistake. I was in my early 20s and looking for some way to serve.” He stepped in to help when a French priest running the studio departed on a three-month sabbatical. Conlon spent a four-month stint with the studio, then returned to Minnesota. Conlon later learned the French priest had been reassigned, so he returned to St. Lucia a year and a half after his first visit. Though Conlon said he expected his second visit to be a short one, “it ended up being about nine months.” It was how he met his wife; they married in 2000 in St. Lucia and moved to Minnesota to start their family.

Conlon’s favorite aspect of his work with Inver Grove Heights-based Town Square Television is broadcasting as a service. “I like doing live production, TV production, but I also enjoy having it as a service to our local archdiocese,” Conlon said.

Bishop-elect Izen’s episcopal ordination is set for 1 p.m. April 11. Complete ordination information can be found on the archdiocese’s website at archspm.org/ newbishop. Those in the Twin Cities metro area who want to watch the ordination can tune in to Metro Cable Network Channel 6. It will be livestreamed on the Cathedral’s Facebook page at facebook com/ cathedralsaintpaul It will also be broadcast live on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.