September 15 , 2009
For Immediate Release

WKNO Premieres High Definition Documentary on
Shelby Farms Park

WKNO is pleased to deliver its first production in high definition. Shelby Farms: America’s Great 21st Century Park premieres Wednesday, October 7 at 7:00 p.m. The sixty-minute documentary is the story of the past, present and future of the country’s largest urban park.

Shelby Farms Park is 4,500 acres of green space which lies nestled in the heart of Shelby County. From the centrally located Plough Park to the expansive lakes to the herd of loitering buffalo, the Lucius Burch State Natural Area, disc golf course, BMX bike track and 1,000 acres that is Agricenter International, thousands of Shelby County citizens flock to the park for recreation each year.

Through a series of interviews and historical film footage and photographs, the WKNO-TV documentary will tell the story of Shelby Farms Park from its humble beginnings to what the park offers today’s residents of the Mid-South.

Shelby Farms will also explore the changes the park is currently experiencing – its transition from a government-controlled entity into the hands of the nonprofit Shelby Farms Park Conservancy. The program will end up with a look at the park’s future – what the Conservancy’s visionary master plan has in store for this huge, unspoiled green space. 

Shelby Farms: America’s Great 21st Century Park is sponsored by Boyle Investment Company; The Law Offices of Burch, Porter and Johnson, PLLC; and O.T. Marshall Architects.

The documentary is a companion piece to the national PBS film, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. The six-part documentary series, premiering Sunday, September 27 at 7:00 p.m. on WKNO/Channel 10, is the story of an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. The broadcast of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea on WKNO is sponsored by Mississippi River Corridor – Tennessee and Outdoors, Inc.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, DC. National funding is provided by General Motors; Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund; Corporation for Public Broadcasting; The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations; Park Foundation, Inc.; Public Broadcasting Service; National Park Foundation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; The Pew Charitable Trusts; and Bank of America.

WKNO is a non-profit, private foundation serving the Mid-South for more than 50 years.  An important community resource, WKNO uses the power of non-commercial public broadcasting to provide the Mid-South with quality educational and cultural programs that inform, entertain, and inspire.

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