The life of a one-day NBC/Lipscomb student runner does not actually involve a lot of running.
In my short time helping out the NBC Nightly News crew, I got tasked with all manner of things to help the on-the-road broadcast happen.
The clock read 10:25 a.m. There was no thermometer in the room, but I could gauge the temperature. It was roughly 80 degrees, and beads of perspiration could be seen on people’s foreheads.
It was discussed that a fan should be procured, and I should be the one to fetch it, and so I did. I placed the fan in the very office where anchor Brian Williams would soon be stationed.
At precisely 11 a.m., I pointed out the nearest restroom to an NBC employee.
“Do you know where the closest restroom is,” the employee asked. “It’ll be right over there,” I said while pointing expertly in the general direction of the restroom. The employee was grateful.
At 12:30 p.m., an NBC photographer needed to get footage of Lipscomb’s campus, and I was the chosen one to drive him around in a golf cart.
“You,” an NBC employee pointed to me and said, “You’re a student, yes? So you would know all the pretty places around campus?”
“Yes, I am and I do,” I said.
“Great. You can take our photographer around campus to get some shots.”
The next hour was spent chit-chatting with the photographer as he got his shots, telling my beginnings and background as a student journalist at Lipscomb, and hearing about his career.
At precisely 4:06 p.m., I spotted Williams walk into the Bennett Campus Center accompanied by Lipscomb and NBC personnel. Much to my dismay, I did not get to meet him.
The rest of the evening was spent walking, not running, around the set of the makeshift news desk in Bison Square, which had the Osman Fountain in the background.
As Williams began his newscast, Lipscomb faculty and staff gathered around the tents that housed all the equipment needed to run a live broadcast, anxious to get a glimpse of the anchor in action. Sadly, I was confined to an oddly angled corner where I could not see Williams’s head.
Before long, the broadcast was over, and Williams was whisked away to give the commencement speech at Hillwood High School’s graduation ceremony in Allen Arena. I had missed him again. However, the day did not go to waste.
The chance to meet and interact with so many of news’s finest photographers, producers and behind-the-scenes personnel made my mind race with adrenaline that only the fast-paced news life can give.