Another Visit to TV Land: How Steven Greil Got a Corner Office, A Nashville Drug Deal Gets Strange And We Get The Vote

Once again going back in time with the help of the Vanderbilt TV News Archives, here's a mixture of stories reported by NBC NIGHTLY NEWS.

All of them are from the summer of 1971. That's when the city of Nashville blew up The Andrew Jackson Hotel downtown. Implosions were still relatively new in those days, and so media coverage of the event was extensive. In fact, for several years afterwards, WSM-TV, Channel 4 used some of this film to open its newscasts each night.

Our own Steven Greil of the Class of '73, got a corner office out of it eventually, as the hotel site was later developed as the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, where Steven was the very successful Executive Director of that facility for many years.

The other clips we have today concern a Nashville drug deal gone strange (and very funny), while the last part of the video concerns 18 year olds officially getting the right to vote that summer.

Here's how it was reported on NBC with David Brinkley, Frank McGee and Edwin Newman....



OK, on the drug deal, it's been long enough that the statute of limitations has expired: Any one out there want to fess up about being involved in either buying or sell that oregeno?

As for the right to vote, I remember going down to register at the Metro Courthouse almost immediately after the constitutional amendment was approved. Nashville had a hotly contested city election going on that summer, and the candidates were everywhere, shaking hands and handing out their materials, as we stood in a long line that extended outside the Election Commission in the basement of the Courthouse, all the way down a long hallway and out the door to a parking lot across the street. It took a while, but I got through the line and registered.

All these young people signing up to vote was much to the displeasure of Davidson County Voter Registar, Mary Ferrell. She was convinced this was a very bad idea and that it would eventually be repealed.

So for everyone under 21 who registered, she developed a big red stamp marked "Under 21" which she placed on every one of our permanent voter registration records.

As far as I know it is still there today. I used to see it every election day when the poll workers checked my voter card and ID against their permanent records...and there it was.

Everytime I see it, it always makes me laugh.




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