Published: January 23, 2008 03:37 pm         

RCHS students to appear on The Tonight Show

Royse City High School broadcasting students brought home a second-place national award and were selected to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Friday. Members of the high school television crew traveled to Anaheim, Calif. last week to attend the national convention for secondary broadcasting students. The Student Television Network Convention provides workshops and contest for secondary students in all areas of video production.

Lindzi Shanks, senior at RCHS, won second-place in the Live Reporting category. In this contest, students are given a press release about an event and have 45 minutes to prepare for an on-camera presentation as if they were live on the scene.

“I never thought I’d win anything. It was surreal to do so well among broadcasters who have been doing this for years,” said Shanks.

Prior to the convention, RCHS students received a special invite to be interviewed by late night TV host Jay Leno for his segment called JayWalking. Eight of the 10 students on the trip were asked general knowledge questions with Leno hoping for a comical response. Senior Keri Zimlich says she doesn’t know if she will make the final cut but did provide some funny answers.

“He asked me how many states, and without thinking it through, I replied 52,” said Zimlich. Among the other students interviewed for the national TV show included junior Nick Lamb and seniors Tyler Quiett, Shanks, Brittany Miller, Kalynn Rose, Aisha Eddebbarh and MacKenzie Maxwell.

“I can’t believe I got to meet Jay Leno and I can’t believe I have a chance to be on national TV,” said Edebbarh. As of press time, the exact air-date was not available but it should air sometime this week on local NBC affiliate channel 5.

After their meting with Leno at Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood, students traveled back to Anaheim for the convention. Other students competing in events included Lamb, Adrienne Montgomery, Erin Mayfield and Quiett who had eight hours to videotape and edit a complete music video. Miller competed in the anchoring event while Rose competed in the first-ever laptop journalist contest. Results of the laptop event will be released later this week. Maxwell and Zimlich competed in the public service announcement category.

“While my team didn’t place in the top five, we learned how tough it is to win at this event,” said Lamb, who is a junior at RCHS and plans to compete at next year’s convention.

More than 1,700 students from across the nation attended this year’s event. This is the second year for RCHS students to attend the convention. Last year, Maxwell won an honorable mention in the Collaborative Commercial category. Students raised funds for the trip by selling cookies, painting a fence and receiving sponsorships by local businesses. The RCTV class produces a weekly news show about their California trip which will air this Friday on the high school TV system and will be available for viewing on the school website at www.rcisd.com later this month.

Journalism teacher Steve Vaughn teachers the class of advanced video students. “This is our second year to have a full-fledged broadcasting program. I’m proud of this group and what they have accomplished in such a short amount of time,” said Vaughn.

He added his class plans to launch a local cable TV show in the near future on the Connextions cable system in Royse City.

The group is already making plans to attend next year’s convention which is scheduled to be held in Orlando, Fla.