Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 24, 1994 TAG: 9408240050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEW CASTLE LENGTH: Long
Out of the deeply forested green hills, Jillian Hamilton shoots through the white early morning mist at 35 mph, tethered by a canvas harness to a half-inch thick metal cord that suspends her 20 feet above the ground.
It's 9 a.m. Tuesday and she's been up since 3. Already she's scaled a rock-climbing wall, eaten leaves and berries and dropped backward from a 5-foot-tall log into the arms of 10 adolescent campers. And that's not to mention the exhilarating 900-foot ride she took down the aforementioned cable.
All in a day's work for Hamilton. As a field host for "Breakfast Time," the morning show on fX, the new Fox cable network, she has traveled to more than 10 cities across the United States in less than three months. During her travels, she has done everything from having her arm set safely aflame by a special-effects company to milking cows on a farm.
And she's done the tamer stuff. Other fX field hosts have done remote interviews while bungee-jumping from bridges, driving race cars or standing under monster trucks as they leap overhead.
This week, Hamilton and "Breakfast Time" are visiting the Roanoke area.
Tuesday, they explored Wilderness Adventure at Eagle Landing, a New Castle-based camp that teaches outdoors skills to people of all ages year-round. Monday, Hamilton was at Roanoke Memorial Hospital's trauma unit, where she helped CAT-scan a watermelon. Today, she will attend the first day of classes at Roanoke Catholic School.
Thursday, she'll don nose plugs for a tour of Roanoke's sewage treatment plant. And Friday, she'll follow the birth and life of a brick at Old Virginia Brick Co. Inc. in Salem.
"Breakfast Time" prides itself on taking the unbeaten path. Based in an apartment in New York that serves as fX's studio, the live show is a hip blend of early morning talk and news with several one-to-five-minute clips from field hosts who travel to different cities.
Steven Lerner, a field producer for the show, said Roanoke was chosen by the show's research staff as an area that hasn't been extensively covered by other networks. He was determined when he came to Roanoke to steer clear of obvious spots to visit, such as Mill Mountain, Center in the Square or the Virginia Museum of Transportation.
"The whole idea is we don't want to go to the tourism spots. We want to see real people doing real things," Lerner said.
But Hamilton, an actress and singer, looks like she would be more at home on the runways of Paris than in the deep woods of Appalachia mixing with "real people."
Nevertheless, she fit right in. Sporting jeans, a green-and-black flannel shirt, hiking shoes and sometimes a crash helmet, Hamilton scaled the rock-climbing wall, rode the zip-line cable and sampled sassafras tea made from roots pulled right from the ground.
"I just get a warm feeling out here ... out in nature," Hamilton said. "I get to see what real Virginians are doing and how they're living."
A.J. Hochhauser, an 11-year-old from Washington, D.C., who is starting her second week at the camp, said Hamilton was "really nice" and it was "pretty cool" to be on television.
Gene Nervo, the retired 33-year veteran Marine colonel who started the camp in 1990, said Hamilton was good with the children. "I don't believe how well she can ad-lib. It's a skill." He said he hoped the show's visit would mean more business for Wilderness Adventure, which attracts campers from all over the country.
Dr. Carol Gilbert, director of Roanoke Memorial Hospital's trauma unit, said "Breakfast Time"'s visit to the hospital was helpful in raising awareness of the importance of seeking the proper care for serious injuries.
Using a watermelon, Gilbert demonstrated on-camera how a CAT-scan allows doctors to get a cross-sectional view of internal organs without operating.
Paramedics from Carilion Transportation Services and doctors and staff from Roanoke Memorial Hospital also staged a mock trauma situation for Hamilton, showing her cable television audience how a trauma unit functions.
Getting in the spirit of the show, paramedics did exercises with Hamilton live on-camera during fX's 6:30 a.m. exercise show to promote the hospital interview on "Breakfast Time," which airs from 7 to 9 a.m.
"It was the most embarrassing thing I've ever done, and I had to do it on national television," said Allan Belcher, a paramedic. "I was really off-beat."
Jimmy Amos, also a paramedic, said, "We start our shift at 6 a.m. but we're not usually doing aerobics."
Amos, who also acted as the patient in the mock trauma surgery, said the show taught him something. "It was kind of spooky. Everything was a blur. It was a learning experience to be on that side" of the stretcher.
Belcher said the television audience "didn't get to see the terror in a family's eyes wondering if their loved one will make it ... the blood. ... Being a morning show, they wanted to limit what could be seen because children were watching. But it did give a good idea of what goes on in a trauma situation and ... maybe it will help people to realize that there are advanced medical care units in Roanoke to save their lives."
by CNB