Budding documentary makers, Las Vegas Sun, Nov. 18, 1996

Assignment: documentary Lisa Ferguson Monday, Nov. 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m. Mark Booher is hearing wedding bells. But then, that's nothing new for the UNLV senior. He first heard them three years ago when he and Tammie Wyers, a Washington State University grad student, tied the knot in a traditional ceremony in Southern California. "We had the church and the reception and people throwing rice," Booher recalls. But the honeymoon didn't last long. Booher, a communications major, admits it was probably his fault: His budding radio career took precedence over his marriage. "I wanted to be Mr. Joe Star and I didn't treat my wife like a wife. The havocs of our lives brought us farther apart," he says. The couple divorced the following year. It just wasn't meant to be. Or was it? In a strange twist of fate, Booher and Wyers were reunited earlier this year in Las Vegas. Now, they're re-engaged and plan to take the plunge again in a ceremony next May. But this time, there will be no church, no party, no rice: Just the bride, the groom and whoever else happens to be standing in Red Square that day. The couple will recite their vows in the heart of Moscow, in the shadows of the famous onion-domed architecture. Why not, 28-year-old Booher thought? He was going there anyway, on a 21-day educational tour of Eastern Europe sponsored by UNLV. The tour is more of a hands-on class, where 30 or so students and other interested adults will earn credits for producing, directing, filming and editing their own professional-looking documentaries. It's one of two working trips being coordinated this year by UNLV's Continuing Education division and communications instructor Joseph Bauer. The other, a 28-day visit scheduled in June, will include tours of Westminster Abbey, the Sistine Chapel and other historical spots dotting Europe. Bauer, who also hosts the politically fueled radio talk show "L.I.F.E." on KLAV 1230-AM, is the award-winning producer/host of the syndicated PBS travel documentary series "Assignment: Adventure" and its radio counterpart, also on KLAV. He makes annual treks to exotic locales -- past journeys have included China, Casablanca and Athens -- with camera in tow, shooting miles of footage that he later narrates and puts into documentary form. Now it's his students' turn. "Every year when I go to shoot the documentaries ... the students always ask, 'Can I go with you? Can I carry your film and camera?'" Bauer says. "Some of them are real serious and I think there's a lot of talent in my classes. So this year ... I thought we'd put this together. It's a tremendous opportunity." One Bauer believes may not be available much longer. "I was in Russia last year," he says. "Things were deteriorating. A lot of people over there are leaning towards going back to communism. "If we don't go to Russia within the next year, with the way things are over there, it could get real touchy," he says, referring to travel sanctions that he believes could be imposed in the near future. "To be able to get in there and see those treasures in the Kremlin and the treasures of St. Petersburg while it's still reasonably available is important. All of these places were closed just a few years ago. You couldn't get into them." Booher is a student of Bauer's, and says the decision to wed in Red Square "was kind of his idea. I think it's the last time for anybody to go on a tour there, let alone get married in Russia. "Russia was closed for so long. And we're Americans, we're kind of like the enemy. It's kind of like if (Cold War-era) Russians came over here and got married at Disneyland," he says. Booher is in the process of researching the Russian marriages laws, though he's not certain the union will "stick" once they return to the States. The ceremony will be officiated by "some Greek Orthodox dude," he says. "They look like Jerry Garcia, all dressed in white." No traditional tuxedo for this bridegroom. "I would really be diggin' wearing some of their ceremonial junk. If I'm wearing some Hare Krishna-looking thing ... that would make it even more cool." But don't get him wrong; Booher is taking the sanctity of his remarriage "totally serious." Still, "It's not the ceremony that's important, it's what happens after the ceremony," he says. "This thing could all flop to hell, but in the end, we have each other." Booher isn't the only tour-goer with ulterior motives. AngeliQue Charles, a 55-year-old professional "consultant" with a penchant for world travel, hopes to flex her writing muscles a bit. She intends to keep a detailed journal during the trip and turn it into a unique travel guide later on. "I want to get into the culture of the people and how it is so different than Americans'," she says. "I want to do more emotional things regarding the culture and how to behave as an American in a foreign country." Charles' emotions got the best of her during a previous jaunt to Tahiti. "There were these Americans who were complaining about something about the meals," she recalls. "I finally went up to them and said, 'You are the people who give us the name 'Ugly Americans.' You are on a smaller island with the natives and I'm going to ask you to respect the local people.'" Charles also plans to record notes from her European vacation and compile them as a "legacy" for her preteen grandchildren. "I'm one of those jet-setting grandmas," she says. "The grandkids know Grandma travels, but they don't know what that's about." archive