Local Storyteller Appears on NBC Show

As a reporter, this is what is sadly known as a “Lost Article.” I was assigned it, I likely got paid for it in some form. But it never ran.

I saw a guy on TV say he was from Alexandria and since I wrote for an Alexandria magazine, I successfully did the two things necessary to get an article out of it. 1) I convinced an editor to let me tell the story and 2) I tracked down the guy on TV and convinced him to let me interview him. Neither is easy

Alexandrian Tells Story of High School Prom Adventure on National TV

It is thanks to the often-overlooked art of storytelling that a creative entrepreneur like Alexandria resident Ronald Young Jr. can turn a 20-year-old story about sneaking out of his parents’ house to attend the prom into an episode of national television.

“My goal is this is something that continues to raise my profile, but I’d love to be able to turn a podcast into a television show, I’d love to host late night television, I’d love to be able to host a show on HBO, and I’m hoping that having this in my reel is good enough to raise some flags,” said Young.

A 2002 graduate of Hayfield High School, Ronald appeared on Peacock TV’s inaugural season of True Stories. Over the course of the show, non-celebrities with remarkable stories appear on a couch opposite comic actors Randall Park and Ed Helms and tell their stories which are then acted out by professionals in separately filmed scenes.