BANGOR – WABI-TV’s production of a local public affairs program was a national finalist for the year 2001 in The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Community Service Emmy Competition.

Channel 5’s program, one of 300 entries and among 13 finalists vying for the Emmy, was a special edition of the station’s periodic public affairs program “Focus Five.”

The program looked at the issue of underage drinking and driving. The Emmy nomination was the second time the program was honored. The piece had won an Associated Press first-place award in community service programming in 2000.

The nominated program featured an uninterrupted 14-minute educational video, “One For Over the Line,” produced, directed, photographed and edited by WABI’s senior creative services producer, John Beaulieu, a 37-year veteran at the television station.

“It’s a tremendous honor,” Beaulieu said. “I had great people to work with – Glenn Ross of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department, the John Bapst high school drama club and Brent Slowikowski, who was WABI public service director at the time.”

The video, Beaulieu said, takes kids through the process of drinking and driving. “They learn they can throw their lives away in an instant. They do get arrested, fingerprinted, jailed and sentenced,” he said.

“John made the project go,” said Slowikowski, who now works in Eastern Maine Healthcare’s community relations department. “He was the creative force behind it.”

Aimed at teens, the video was produced in cooperation with Driver’s Edge, a driver education school based in Glenburn, with participation from local and state law enforcement agencies, emergency services, hospitals, staff and local high school students.

Distributed by law enforcement agencies and educators, the video is in the libraries of several schools, police departments and other organizations nationally.

“This is an extreme honor for the station and for all who participated in the making of the program,” said Mike Young, WABI-TV vice president and general manager. “I’ve often said that good TV is something you watch, and great TV is something you feel. We felt that this was great TV, and it’s gratifying that the judging panel at the Academy agreed.”

“All of our competition was in the Top 15 markets, with most on the upper end of that scale,” said Paul Saliwanchik, promotion and marketing director. “It’s quite an achievement for us to even be in the running as a finalist.”

“Every time we looked at it … every time we thought about it, the program just hit us,” said program director Steve Hiltz. “It’s really a moving and thought-provoking piece. We felt that it deserved wider recognition – that it was good enough to compete on a national basis.”

“That we were nominated for the Emmy, even though we didn’t win, says a lot for the quality of TV in the Bangor market,” Beaulieu said.

A station in Chicago won the Emmy on Aug. 28.