W Kirk Orndorff is a broadcaster/multi-media journalist from Loveland, Colorado. Kirk attended Hastings College, where he graduated with a Broadcasting, Sports Emphasis degree.

While attending Hastings, Kirk was very active in the broadcasting department. As a freshman, Kirk was the sports anchor for the weekly news program, Bronco News Now. In addition, he was the color commentator for all HCTV6 volleyball broadcasts.

Behind the scenes, Kirk was very active in all HCTV6 sports broadcasts, running any of the cameras, audio and replays, and even learning to direct soccer games a couple of months into the school year. This led Kirk to go to the NAIA Division II Women’s Basketball Tournament with the media department.

As sophomore year rolled around, Kirk got more active, moving up to play-by-play for the volleyball broadcasts, which were now being simulcast on the school radio station, 90.1 fm, KFKX, as well as hosting a weekly radio show, Kirkcenter, and in the spring joined the sports talk show The Round Up. He took on a bigger role during the newscasts, becoming the Technical Director during the fall broadcasts and directing every show in the spring.

Kirk continued his large role behind the scenes of the sports broadcasts, until halfway through the year when he took over as HCTV Sports Director. With this role, he was in charge of all sports content that went out over channel 6. In addition, Kirk played a larger role at the women’s basketball national tournament, doing post-game highlights to air within 10 minutes of the game ending, then needing to be posted to the HC Media site before halftime of the following game.

Junior year looked very much the same, as Kirk was still in charge of all sports content that went out over TV. He took another step up for the newscasts, however, as he stepped into the producer role.

In addition to producing Bronco News Now, the producing class was required to produce a weekly entertainment show during the spring semester. Being the sports mind he is, Kirk created Bronco Sports Chat, a  show that looked at different aspects of Hastings College athletics. The Round Up was integrated into this to create “HC Sports Chat,” a webpage for the tv and radio shows to be showcased, as well as specialty articles about various Bronco athletics.

Once again, Kirk played a large role at the NAIA Basketball tournament, doing pre-game and post-game analysis for various games in addition to highlights and working the live crew.

Senior year, Kirk took a step back as many underclassmen were entering the department, and it was their time to shine. Kirk was still in charge of all HC Media sports content during the fall semester, but gave up the year-long role when the spring rolled around. Kirk also became just a reporter for Bronco News Now, shooting video stories when needed. There were 8 producers and more than 15 underclassmen running behind the scenes, so Kirk’s news days finished at HC unceremoniously. Kirkcenter came to an end at the end of the fall semester, but The Round Up finished out the school year with an all-new cast. The show is no longer on the air.

In addition, Kirk did not attend the annual National Tournament trip due to an increasing role on the Bronco baseball team. The same week of the tournament, the baseball team was in Wichita, Kansas, taking on Friends University.

In four years, Kirk recorded countless news packages, spent many hours live on the radio, was a go-to editor if something needed edited, and commentated volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, and soccer games for TV and/or radio.

Shortly after graduating from Hastings, Kirk signed on with the Colorado Sportscast Network, a privately owned business which streams high school sports. In its heyday, CSN had 5 crews doing up to 10 broadcasts per week. Because of the accessibility for everyone to stream online, business has dropped substantially, where only their most loyal coaches are staying on with them.

In a year and a half, Kirk has commentated many games for Chaparral, Ponderosa, and Grandview High Schools, and has hosted a monthly fall show, the Chaparral Volleyball Coaches’ Show. A deal had been made with Fossil Ridge High School to commentate their home baseball games, but the deal fell through. Colorado Sportscast Network did not renew its contracts with any schools for the 2015-2016 school year, ending his two years with them.

While still holding that job, Kirk was hired at Altitude Sports and Entertainment working in Master Control. Altitude owns the Outdoor Channel, the Sportsmans Channel, and 1/2 of the World Fishing Network, plus leases out the building to ROOT Sports Southwest. Now Kirk gets to help broadcast games for the Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Rapids, Colorado Mammoth, Denver Outlaws, and numberous games from the American Sports Network, plus games on ROOT Sports from the Houston Astros, the Houston Rockets, the Houston Dynamo, and the Houston Dash.

Despite all this, Kirk is still looking for opportunities to be on air, as that’s what he has the most fun doing.

What started all of this, you may wonder, was when Kirk signed up for the video class in high school also known as KLHS. When he started they were doing 4-5 minute news shows every day, and when he graduated they were doing a 10:00 news show only on Fridays.

At the start of his 2nd semester taking the class, Kirk took the reigns of KLHS Sports and never looked back. He started a legacy that still lives to this day at Loveland High, and KLHS is still trying to improve thanks to his efforts.