For 17 years, Morgan Potts has followed his passion, and it’s paid off — most recently with two Emmys from the Midsouth Regional Emmy Awards.

Potts is a producer, director and editor for the UNC-TV series “Our State,” a spin-off of “Our State” magazine that builds on the magazine’s stories. Each episode consists of two to three segments, each a mini-documentary featuring North Carolinians and their stories.

“The job that I do, it’s definitely a passion, I can’t imagine doing anything else,” Potts said.

Potts comes by his avocation naturally: he’s the grandson of Bill Roberson, founder of WITN-TV and WRRF-AM in Washington. Growing up, he spent many after school hours at the radio station, learning the tools of the trade from those who worked there.  Later, a volunteer position at UNC-TV led to a fulltime position.

“I knew I was right where I wanted to be — right where I needed to be to share stories about North Carolina with our viewers,” Potts said.

Those stories range from eight to 17 minutes long and though based on magazine features, often veer off in another direction, offering a different view — a more in-depth view — of the same person or subject.

“One of the most exciting parts of my job is meeting a subject for the first time. You have preconceived notions of what the story will be but then its gets turned upside down once you meet the individual. Only at that point you can begin to formulate the story that you will tell. Fifty different producers will put out 50 different takes on the same topic or subject. You just hope you have done your subject justice and the story will connect with the viewer,” Potts wrote in an email.

“Our State” won five Emmys on Jan. 31, with Potts taking home top Director/Program for a segment about East Fork Pottery, and Best Magazine Program for an episode featuring a story about Bernie Harberts, a North Carolina man who initially planned to ride across North Carolina on a mule — a year later he’d crossed the country.

“I kind of fell in love with his story, the fact that this guy could just drop everything and take off,” Potts said.

For the segment, Potts and his crew traveled with Harberts, his mule Woody and their buggy through the tail end of winter and a March nor’easter.

“We scheduled a little adventure from Oriental to Aurora, to get a feel for what it would be like on the road,” Potts said. “You’d think you’d be lonely (on the road) but so many people see this person on a mule — he’s kind of like the ice cream truck. People see the mule and they give him love, they give him money. It’s a pretty amazing life he lives.”

The East Fork Pottery segment is about a young man who relocated to the mountains of North Carolina to follow his own dream of creating pottery.

“Here’s this guy, north of Asheville, doing his own thing, making pottery,” Potts said. “You add into the fact that he’s the great-grandson of Henri Matisse, the story kind of gets weight.”

Potts said it’s because he is surrounded by a talented crew and has access to great stories, which he referred to as “hidden treasures across the state,” that his work has been recognized by the Nashville/Midsouth Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences

Potts’ East Fork Pottery segment can be seen at http://vimeo.com/97868577. The Mule Rider episode can be viewed at http://vimeo.com/105342905.