DREW SEELEY, EMMY AWARD� NOMINEE ANNIE POTTS AND MULTIPLE EMMY AWARD� WINNER KIM ZIMMER STAR IN "FRESHMAN FATHER," A HALLMARK CHANNEL ORIGINAL MOVIE WHICH HAS BEGUN PRODUCTION FOR AIR ON HALLMARK CHANNEL IN 2010

Drew Seeley ("Another Cinderella Story"), Emmy Award nominee Annie Potts ("Love and War," "Designing Women") and multiple Emmy Award-winner Kim Zimmer ("Guiding Light") are set to star in "Freshman Father," a poignant Hallmark Channel Original Movie based on a true story about a young man whose high school sweetheart becomes pregnant and accompanies him to Harvard. When she gives up and goes home, he has to juggle school and all the challenges of being the single parent of a newborn.

"Freshman Father" has begun production in Victoria, B.C., Canada, and will premiere on Hallmark Channel in 2010.

John Patton (Seeley), the small town high school prom king, star quarterback and class valedictorian is all set to start Harvard in the fall when his steady girlfriend, Kathy (Britt Irvin, "The Assistants"), tells him she is pregnant. The couple makes the difficult decision to marry, and Kathy agrees to follow John to school. Then, when the compromises and responsibilities of young parenthood wear on her, Kathy leaves her son, Adam, and John behind to return to her small town.

Struggling now with his classes, a new job and taking care of his son by himself, John wonders how he will do it all. His luck improves a bit when he finds an apartment and his new manager, Dorothy (Potts), becomes his surrogate mom. But then John realizes he's failed a calculus exam after an all-nighter taking care of Adam and he decides to throw in the towel and start packing for home. It's only when an unlikely mentor appears � the hard-nosed Dean Frost (Zimmer) � that John gets a second chance and the support he needs to continue his dream.

"Freshman Father" is being produced by Freshman Father Productions. Carla Singer ("Twitches") is the executive producer; Harvey Kahn is the producer. Michael Scott ("Mrs. Miracle") is directing from a script by Bill Wells ("Blackout").

Hallmark Channel, owned and operated by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., is a 24-hour basic cable network that provides a diverse slate of high-quality entertainment programming to a national audience of 88 million subscribers. The top-tier program service is distributed through more than 5,450 cable systems and communities as well as direct-to-home satellite services across the country. Hallmark Channel consistently ranks among the highest-rated cable networks and is the nation's leading network in providing quality family programming. Hallmark Channel's sibling network is Hallmark Movie Channel which focuses on the greatest family movies of all time.