NORWAY — Peter Morton, the station manager for Norway Paris Community Television, wants to put the community back into his station.

Taking a moment to sit (as he usually stands at his TV editing station in his office), he talks about his goal to get more community-created programming on the public access station. The Norway and Otisfield historical societies are two of the few groups in Oxford Hills that borrow cameras from the station to film some of their presentations.

“I would love to see more community involvement,” Morton said. “We are a community access station. A lot of people don’t know what that means. If you put a TV show together, we can help you get it to fruition and actually air it on the station.”

And he wanted to put out his own public service announcement about his call for PSAs. He’s reached out to Norway Police Chief Rob Federico and the local hospitals about creating PSAs for the community. But Morton extended that invitation to anyone who’s interested, including Paris Police and other local police and fire departments, game wardens and the like. He just wants important information to get to the community.

There’s two cameras available for community members to borrow. Morton has slowly been adding more cameras to the station’s fleet and upgrading the equipment so there will be enough to have a third editing station. This station will be used to train community members so they can edit their own clips and/or shows.

Morton took over as station manager in October 2014 after longtime station manager Steve Galvin headed to Rockland to run a new TV station. Prior to that, Morton worked at the station for two years and had mostly worked as a chef, worked in the IT business for a short stint and ran his own website design business. He applied for the gig at NPCTV after Joan Parker, the former host of “Story Connections,” told him about the opening and urged him to send in his resume.

“I said, ‘Wow that sounds like fun. I’ll check it out,’” Morton recalled. “I hit it off with Steve. He obviously thought I had the skills.”

One of the first major issues he had to deal with at the helm was moving the TV station from its former location on Marston Street to its new digs on 3 Harrison Road in Norway, around the corner from the Lake Store. The lease was up and the move allowed the station to save some money on rent, he said.

“It went really smooth as my fingers and toes were crossed because I didn’t have the experience Steve had in moving a television station,” Morton said, laughing.

Since becoming station director, Morton has added some new programming. It’s focused on education and there’s a new segment documenting Stephen Memorial Hospital’s new Celebrity Chef Series. Cooking presentations are held at the Progress Center in Norway and filmed by NPCTV.

“The practitioners tell people all day to eat healthy and they can show people how,” Morton said.

For more information about the station or to borrow equipment, call 743-7859 or visit NPCTV’s website at www.npctv11.org.

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