Nancy Black, the student media lab specialist for Eastfield’s The Et Cetera newspaper, has been in her position for more than a year now and loves everything about it. She works with the news staff to guide them as they edit student media and create a polished newspaper that is ready to print. Students always have the final say over articles, photos and graphics.
Though Black developed her craft as a journalist, her first passion for acting in high school led her to Hollywood. Black grew up in Highland Park, a wealthy area of Dallas, though her single mother didn’t have much money. She transferred to Arts Magnet at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts her sophomore year of high school to further her studies as an actress. After she graduated, Black landed a job on a television show called “Scuba World,” which focused on popular areas to scuba dive around the world. “We’d go to scuba diving sites and tell you where to stay, and where to shop, and where to eat, and then take the cameras underwater and actually show you where to dive,” she said. Her time doing “Scuba World” is among the many reasons she decided to move to Hollywood at the age of 20.
Black stayed in Hollywood for 12 years. During her time there, she landed various Screen Actors Guild acting roles (most recognize Black for her role on “The Golden Girls”) and worked a variety of other jobs to fund her journey in between acting, including hostess, maître d’ and limo driver for Hollywood stars.
Black drove stars like Bono, Prince and Whoopi Goldberg and even formed friendships with them. “I’d go pick up Bruce Springsteen and he’d give me a big ol’ hug,” she said. Her time in Hollywood changed the way she viewed the famous people who work there. She explains, “I got to meet a lot of my idols and find out that they’re just people, too.” Black was also managing director of a theater company during her Hollywood career.
By the time she was 32, Black moved back to Dallas to take care of her sick mother and start a family. Black’s mother let her stay with her to raise her newborn son on one condition — she had to go back to college. Black returned to the Brookhaven campus of Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD) at the time, to finish her associate’s degree in science.
When she noticed errors in the student newspaper at Brookhaven, Black went to the campus newsroom to learn more. There, she met now retired professor Dr. John Neal, who was in charge of The Brookhaven Courier at the time, who offered her a position editing the paper.
“He’s like, well you can take this class, and you can be editor of the paper, and you can fix any typos you find,” Black recalls. She became editor-in-chief of The Brookhaven Courier and introduced the news team to new, novel technologies like Zip drives.
DCCCD offered Black a full scholarship to transfer to SMU, where she ran the award-winning school paper, The Daily Campus, and received her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism. After college, she wrote the morning news for WFAA, Dallas’ local Channel 8 News, while taking care of her son and mother. After her time at WFAA, she worked for the Lone Star Chapter of the Emmy Awards, with one duty being filling the award’s envelopes with the winner of each category. Black also welcomed the birth of her second child, a daughter, during this time.
When the 2008 recession left her without a job, Black started White Rock Lake Weekly, an East Dallas community newspaper she continues to run to this day with her business partner, Andy Simpson. She was hired by Simpson to be an editor for her newspaper’s predecessor, The White Rocker. When the owner of that paper abandoned it, Black created White Rock Lake Weekly with Simpson to operate in its place. “We need to make it a buffet. There needs to be something for everybody,” she recalls her partner saying.
Black landed at Eastfield in 2024 when Daniel Rodrigue, the replacement for Dr. Neal at Brookhaven, posted a job opening for a lab specialist on Facebook. Black interviewed and got the job. She appreciates working as the student media lab specialist because it combines everything she loves about journalism while, at the same time, being able to inspire the next generation.
Black’s son is now an officer in the Navy currently deployed to Yemen. Her daughter is graduating from UT Austin this month before heading to British Columbia to pursue her master’s in international relations.
One of her favorite moments with her students is winning awards at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association (TIPA) conference. “It was really nice to send a very rookie news team to a conference and have them come back with third place in Best of Show,” she said.
Throughout her career, Black has kept the concept of karma close to her heart. When asked if she’s learned any lessons from her experience, she answered, “I really have found what goes around comes around.” This couldn’t be more true for Black, a well-rounded journalist, mother and inspiration to the next generation of creatives.
