Jeff Christian has television in his blood.

“My mom says I was born with a video camera in my hand,” he said.

Christian, sophomore in pre-journalism and mass communication, spends his time as a photographer for the Iowa State Daily, Ethos magazine and KCCI Channel 8, the CBS affiliate in Des Moines.

Christian’s hard work recently paid off. He and a colleague, Channel 8’s Eric Hanson, won a regional Emmy for a television feature about an 80-year-old garage band.

“By day, the building used by the band is Sanders Auto Lab,” Christian said. “By night, it’s a make-shift stage for a band that has been playing together for over six decades.”

The band plays on the first Friday of every month in Ankeny, Christian said.

“They were the biggest bunch of characters I had ever seen,” he said. “Older guys with banjos, violins and fiddles plucking away on strings — it was something I had never seen before.

“We knew going into it that the story had potential,” he said.

“After it started to develop in front of us, we looked at each other and knew this could be really good. Then, it [became] our responsibility to do the story justice.”

Christian said he and Hanson spent more than 60 hours editing the piece after shooting, which began in February, wrapped up.

After the project was complete, Christian and Hanson discovered they’d been nominated for a regional Emmy.

“KCCI Channel 8 was nominated for two Emmys: overall excellence in a newscast and for our piece,” he said. “Being nominated is an honor alone.”

Christian and Hanson flew to St. Louis to attend the ceremony.

“Going to a ceremony like that is very intimidating because you just don’t know what to expect being among producers, executive producers and photographers that you know of,” he said.

The unexpected did happen — they won.

“All of a sudden they called our name and I suddenly realized, ‘That’s us’,” Christian said.

Christian said he is proud of the piece because he both shot and produced it. Hanson and Christian worked as a team. While Christian shot video footage, Hanson wrote the story.

“I’ve always seemed to work well with Jeff. He knows how to capture the moment and how to get a good story,” he said. “It makes my job so much easier to work with a photojournalist who knows news when he sees it.”

Dave Busiek, news director for KCCI, said regional Emmys are very hard to get.

“It’s terrific that both Eric and Jeff got this award,” he said. “They knew [the story] was something special and they wanted to take some time to put it together right, and it paid off.”

Busiek said the garage band production ran in a category with St. Louis and Kansas City television stations.

“It really says something that they were able to beat out reporters and photographers from a much bigger market,” he said.

The garage band piece will compete for a national Emmy in Los Angeles later this year.

“This has been the pinnacle of my career thus far,” Christian said. “No one knows this, but after you win an Emmy it’s like having another birthday. People send cards and gifts.”