Harry Smith Extended Interview

(music)

[Nebbe] So, I want to talk with you about what brought you to Central College because you grew up in Illinois and you have said that you were not particularly an engaged student in high school.

[Harry Smith] Well, said.

[Nebbe] Well, you said it yourself at another time. And college wasn't a given for you.

[Harry Smith] Absolutely not. I'm the youngest of eight children and I have one brother who went to college. He actually went here. He is seven years older than I am. College was not a thing that was discussed in our family at all really. I had a couple of siblings who were National Honor Society types, like that brother. But I was that kid who sat in the front of the classroom like this falling asleep and found the questions on tests ambiguous and I didn't do homework much. I had passing grades, but that stuff was just, it just wasn't on my radar. I wanted to be a cross country truck driver. That was what I thought because I knew I wanted to see America. Senior year comes along, I had a very good senior year playing football and they said, you need to get straight A's, so I got straight A's and did whatever I needed to do to get into college.

[Nebbe] So you could keep playing football.

[Harry Smith] Yeah, yeah.

[Nebbe] You talk about how you were basically just a Roman candle waiting to be lit. What happened when you got to college that set you on fire?

[Harry Smith] Professors. Professors and coaches. I'm still in touch with one of my professors. We text. So, if I'm 73 he is I don't know what. But we text. I had so many instructors, so many professors here were I think, and it's still true to this day, I think the thing that sets us apart and makes us unique is so many people here are interested in seeing you succeed. But I remember being in the student union back in the day and we tended to go there to eat breakfast. And there were faculty members in there and sometimes somebody would just plop down next to you. And I didn't take much history but this history guy says, well did you ever read this? Did you ever read that? Did you ever read that? IT was like, they were just, people were sowing seeds all over the place and I'm like -- I couldn't get all of it fast enough.

[Nebbe] You studied communications when you were in college. What made you want to go in the direction of journalism?

[Harry Smith] I took a little bit of everything just to be honest. And my major in quotation marks was communications and theatre, that was the department it was in. But I really studied communications as a social science and really thought I was going into graduate school in that. But I had also taken a lot of theology and there were a couple of guys in the theology department who were trying to get me to go to seminary, to go to divinity school. And I messed around at the college radio station a lot. And I went to KNIA Radio and knocked on their door one day and said, do you need somebody to write copy for you? So, I wrote commercials for DND Pump and Pipe, which I am proud to say is still in business thanks to my amazing commercials 55 years ago.

(laughter)

[Nebbe] When you left school, how did you get into broadcasting?

[Harry Smith] I was moving to Denver. I was following a young woman to Denver and there was a guy who had a job at a radio station in Denver, a Central College guy. And he said, they're looking for somebody to do the all-night show on the jazz station. And I went in for the interview and I could pronounce the names and so I got a job. $2.50 an hour, six hours a night, six nights a week, not enough to actually sustain life. But that was my first big job.

[Nebbe] You spent so many years working for CBS and then NBC and you really are a master storyteller. Was there a point at which you had kind of an epiphany and said, you know, I want to be able to tell stories for a living?

[Harry Smith] So, I got the idea when I was in college that I could write a little bit. I couldn't, but I had the idea that I could. And my senior year I lived off campus in a really bad trailer in a really nasty part of Pella. I know, it's kind of, that's an oxymoron. But it was just out there somewhere. And there was a brand new English professor who lived next door and for reasons I don't understand to this day, I would write all of this stuff on a legal pad and say, would you look this over? And he said, sure. And I would get it back a couple of days later and it was filled with red ink, just seas of red ink. And that was really instructional, it was really instructional. It's what they talk about now like being kind instead of nice, somebody is actually trying to help you as opposed to just being nice to you. And he was one of those people along the way. And I just kept thinking, I have some, I bet I can do this.

[Nebbe] When did TV come into the picture?

[Harry Smith] Back in the day in radio you used to have to do a lot of public service programming to justify your license. So, Sunday nights was that time when there was just meet the zoning board director, your dog catcher and you, just show after show after show of just this droning horrible thing. And I volunteered to take that shift because I thought, if I can really learn how to interview in that context, I can take that someplace.

[Nebbe] I loved this story because it sounds like you were exploring, you were taking opportunities that came your way, you were trying things out. But to make it to CBS News in New York, at some point you have to become ambitious. Was there a shift in you do you feel where you thought, that's where I want to go?

[Harry Smith] So, I'm teaching a course now that is a lot about curiosity and it's a lot about allowing yourself to make mistakes in order to learn better and listening and it's all these kinds of things. And I think I gave myself permission to think that I could do that at some point. But people encouraged me along the way and I sent tape after tape after tape after tape after tape to the network. I've never seen myself as particularly ambitious. I'm always interested in jobs, I'm always interested in telling stories, but I've never been -- they kept hiring me as an anchor for these shows and I'm just like, I don't really want to be an anchor, I just want to be a reporter. So, the whole time I was anchoring I was always aching to get out, which I did a lot.

[Nebbe] Clearly you as a journalist were driven by curiosity. And some people maybe turn that off. But you clearly did not.

[Harry Smith] I helped teach a writing class -- you know, crazy, right -- thanks to the professor next door with the red ink. So, at NBC we had a writing class that met a couple of times a year. There was a waiting list to get in. And one day if I were in town, if they bring me in for one day, and I would make a list and above the things it said, unless you're curious, you're in the wrong business. You need to be insatiable in that regard. And what I found when I came here, back here as a board member, we're a liberal arts college. I came here and took some of this, some of that, some of that, just like filling my heart and mind with all kinds of ideas and thoughts and directions. And over the last 20 years, as we've seen in secondary education this notion, these kids, it's more and more narrow. I want to study this thing so I can get this job so I can do blank so I can make this money. It's very transactional now. Back in the day, we came and sort of discovered stuff. Half of the kids who go to college now will never work in the field they studied. Half. So, you better, in the immortal words of Ron Burgundy in the documentary Anchorman he said, what, you better have your head on a swivel. So, going out into the world, you had better have that. So, the title of the class is Commencement and the whole idea, it's the beginning, it's not the end. So, it's just these are the things I think you need in your toolkit when you walk out the door and first among them is curiosity because you've got to be aware of the world if you're going to succeed at all.

[Nebbe] How did the idea of this class come about?

[Harry Smith] So, that's the genesis really, being on the board here and watching this narrowing of focus over all those years. And it's my realization of the world that I've managed to do okay in for 40 years. I said, this is stuff we need to put in kids' toolkits, resiliency, listening skills, curiosity. That's the stuff, there are building blocks of that, that you can use to walk out the door with that will not only make you a better employee, will make you a more interesting person, but in order to be interesting, you need to be interested.

[Nebbe] You have this really amazing opportunity to connect with young people and tell them all the things you really, really want them to know.

[Harry Smith] Right. It's such a gift. I really view it -- my life has been a gift, let's be honest about it. I am unbelievably grateful for all of the opportunities I've had. I have been so ridiculously fortunate. And now I'm in the classroom, I've taught three classes so far, fourth one is tomorrow, students already exceeding expectations, exceeding expectations. Last Thursday I almost cried five times in the classroom, seriously, because I had given them this kind of ridiculously hard almost throw away assignment. And it was find a stanza from a Walt Whitman poem, bring it to class, read it out loud and then tell everyone in the class why and how you connect with it. And they got up and they read and then the notes go down and they just start to talk. And everyone had a different -- some of the stanzas were the same, and then on and on and on through the classroom and I could barely contain my emotions. And when the class was over, I said, my heart feels like it's this big. And I shook all their hands when they walked out the door. Who -- I get to come back here and do that. Who gets to do that?

[Nebbe] When you have this curiosity mindset, that changes how you engage with people, it changes how you engage with the world. Do you feel like that is something that we have kind of shut down in our culture?

[Harry Smith] I worry about people who spend way too much time on social media and if you think your curiosity is being quenched by scrolling forever and ever, yeah that's a problem. I think that's a problem. I think it's a problem just in regard to human interaction because the thing when you're really curious and you have the courage or give yourself permission to say I'm going to look into that thing, you're going to find people over in that thing who are going to say oh yeah, well you know what, there's this other thing that is also really amazing and then it's all about connection. Curiosity creates amazing layers of connection. And that is worth pursuing, it's really worth pursuing. It's life enriching. Also, saying yes. Saying yes is so important. I get to Iowa, Musco Lighting writes me a note and says, we're doing this thing in Oskaloosa and there's a TV station that is going to be there all day and it's RV TV, right, that's a thing. I didn't know what it was but somebody explained it to me. So, they said, can you come? And I said, I can't come, I'm not going to be there in time. And at the last minute I said, I can get there. They said, great. Would you emcee the band concert? I don't know, I have no idea what I'm getting into, right? I get there, there in the middle of the town square in Oskaloosa is this beautiful bandstand, looked like it went up in the late 1800s, and there in the bandstand 50 people of all different generations playing their flutes and clarinets and trumpets and trombones and tubas, just the most amazing thing. I talked to the conductor, he is a retired school conductor, music teacher, we're having this whole conversation. He said, you know I was a barber for seven years before I decided I was going to do this for a living. I'm like, this guy's a story, this band is a story. It's been there since 1864 they've had this band. I'm going crazy it's so great. 35 minutes of cynicism free enjoyment that the people just loved. Just by I said yes, that's all I did was say yes. I'm in this world that's like no one knows about this. People outside need to know. So, I get back and I'm like, I went to Oskaloosa, I emceed the band concert, it was so great. They said, well Pella has a band. Grinnell has a band. Everybody in Iowa has a band? No one ever told me that.

(laughter)

[Harry Smith] You know what, that's an act of, that really is an act of sincerity. These people come and they practice on Monday nights, they get there after their jobs or whatever family responsibilities they have, they're probably exhausted because life is exhausting now, but they're really happy to be practicing that stuff and they're really happy to be in that bandstand. That's, those are the kinds of things I fear we sometimes lose sight of because that is such a gift, it's just, it's a real gift.

[Nebbe] It's civic engagement too. When we talk about civic engagement, we so often just talk about voting and the conversation stops there. But that is an act of civic engagement that builds a community and enriches people's lives. In your class, when you talked about curiosity and tenacity, resilience, what other things are you hoping to impart to your students?

[Harry Smith] Passion. It's got to be about passion. That's why I'm here. Passion. We talked before, I got lit up here like something crazy.

[Nebbe] Having watched your work for a long time, one of the things that I think makes you a great storyteller is the empathy that you bring to every subject. You have amplified people's voices, you have gone to places that a lot of reporters don't go and have never heard of and you just bring so much humanity to your storytelling. Is that something that you can impart to students to approach their fellow man with empathy?

[Harry Smith] I would tell the students in the writing class, if you listen, if you really listen when you're doing the interview, people will tell you things that you didn't know they were going to tell you. And sometimes they tell you things they didn't even know they were going to tell you themselves. Point two, when they speak to you in that manner, it's your moral responsibility to tell their story. It's not your story, it's their story.

[Nebbe] What gives you hope for the future?

[Harry Smith] Oskaloosa band. There was a kid in the percussion section and after the concert was over, I went to talk to this kid and he's got hair down to here and it didn't matter how kind of clunky the arrangement was or whatever the music was, he was so into every beat that was going on. He was just completely lost himself in that. And I said, who are you? And he says, I go to William Penn and I'm studying music at William Penn. I said, I just love that you just gave yourself to freely to this music, it was just so cool to see. That's all we're talking about at the end of the day is you've got to let your guard down once in a while. You've got to stop being angry about everything.

[Nebbe] You're getting to spend a lot of time with members of Gen Z.

[Harry Smith] Is that what they are?

[Nebbe] Yeah.

[Harry Smith] Oh, didn't know.

(laughter)

[Nebbe] Every generation gets picked on for whatever it is that is new and different about them. But is there something in particular about young people of this age that gives you hope?

[Harry Smith] They kick my butt in class. I didn't see it coming. I really didn't see it coming. I don't have preconceptions about Gen Z what it does or doesn't do except they don't want to work and they don't want to do this --

[Nebbe] And they scroll all the time.

[Harry Smith] And they, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That was not what I experienced in my classroom. So, it's a sample size of 25 Central College students. And if they are representative of some of the rest of them, we're in good shape.

[Nebbe] So, you're a super famous guy. You've been on television for 40 years. Do your students know you from TV?

[Harry Smith] Zero. Zero. I wondered, I really wondered that because what do we know about people of this age is they never watch network television, they never, ever, ever, ever watch a network news show, which is where I've lived basically for the last 40 years. So, in the beginning of the class I said, this is a lot about curiosity. Why are you here? And they told me.

[Nebbe] Because my mom told me I had to take the class?

[Harry Smith] Exactly.

(laughter)

[Harry Smith] Or my grandparents love you. And you know what, there's something great about that because there is very little preconception. They don't -- I don't come in there with very much baggage from the standpoint of I'm not a big shot to them, which is really good.

[Nebbe] You don't live in Pella now but you've been back to teach this course, you've been spending a lot of time --

[Harry Smith] I live above a garage.

(laughter)

[Nebbe] For eight weeks.

[Harry Smith] Probably going to be nine or ten all together.

[Nebbe] So, what do you enjoy about being here now, being a part of the community in a way that is different from flying in and out?

[Harry Smith] So, when I came here first as a student in 1969, I felt like I was home. That home is where your heart is sort of thing, this has never not been home for me in some way. Whenever I come back here there is a whole community of people who's here to say we love you, we're glad you're back. So, yeah, I'm still living that. I'm still very much living that sense of this is home to me.

[Nebbe] Is there anything that you were excited to talk about that we didn't talk about?

[Harry Smith] So, we live in this time when education, higher education is, you don't really need that. What are you going to go to that for? And a liberal arts college? I mean, really? This has got to be, if we're going to spend that money it better be a transaction. And so, you had better get this education that you know you're going to get this paycheck when you get out. My contention is that's a fool's errand. You may be really good at that but you're going to wake up two years from now and say, God I wish I had taken biology. Contrary to popular belief, I think there is enormous value in a liberal arts education, enormous. And the more stuff you can glom onto as you're going through to whatever major you choose, the richer your life is going to be.