Nate Hite works behind the scenes of West Virginia Today Show 3.
As the Fall 2025 Semester winds down, as Christmas and the year 2026 draw closer, I’d like to reflect a little on not just West Virginia Today, but everything that led up to it and everything I hope for after I’m done here.
Reporting for WVU News once, then doing it again as the videography role a year later, I realized how much I enjoy working behind the camera. On camera, I was probably a lot like my fellow reporters in West Virginia Today who are working on a TV show for the first time: I was nervous and anxious about the stories and hoping that everything would work out. After that time in WVU News, I was originally slated to be taking West Virginia Today in Fall ‘23, only for the class to ultimately be cancelled before the previous semester was out.
At the Waterfront Studio in Morgantown, West Virginia, Nate Hite works in the audio booth.
At that point, I had no clue after my second time in WVU News that I would come back as a graduate student to work on not just West Virginia Today, but also get the experience and guidance through the sports show Mountaineer Playbook as their Teaching Assistant. But coming back was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made. Despite the hardships and extraordinarily busy times all through Fall ‘25, I feel even more experienced as a videographer and a scholar of media.
Our final show of the semester felt like one of the best shows to actually produce yet. While it may not have been as fun as making our show about West Virginia culture and tourism, it was more professional and well put together. I got to help Regan Duceman film a food giveaway event in Westover and traveled to Davis yet again with Ayden Norcross to do a story about cross country skiing.
Working with Jeff Boggess, I traveled all the way to Thurmond for a story about some of the local history and what was happening to the tiny old railroad town in Southern West Virginia. Then, making one last-minute trip to Marion County Technical School in Farmington with Jerenie was quite a full-circle event for me. I had gone to study Automotive Tech at Monongalia County Technical Center during my high school years, but my partner attended Marion County Technical Center during her high school years, studying agriculture. I had a sense of deja vu the whole time, and it was something I would not have gotten to experience had I not been working on West Virginia Today.
As I move on with my college career and eventually to my professional career in the Summer of 2026, I will look back on West Virginia Today as one of the biggest influences of my videography and media skills.
Nate Hite joins Jerenie Sands on a story shoot in Morgantown, West Virginia.