Owing to the need for a Friday afternoon diversion—and sparked by the prom story in the news from Connecticut—the end of our afternoon editorial meeting devolved rather quickly into a discussion of our own past proms. One colleague of mine married her prom date. Another colleague attended his prom at the Playboy Club in Chicago (romantic, huh?). I volunteered that my best friend wrapped his car around a tree (other factors might have been involved) as the sun started to rise over East Keansburgh, New Jersey (romantic, huh?) and later married the woman who escaped injury in the wreck. 

So it prompted us to ask: What are your prom stories...and disaster stories?

I'll start: 1977, Jersey Shore, powder blue tux. In 1977 on the Jersey Shore, to have worn anything else would have been a fashion Don't.  My date was named Anne... my girlfriend at the time, who no doubt has entered the Witness Protection Program to try to forget about the experience.  Our prom theme was "If," based (so craftily, we thought) on the song by Bread of the same title.  So there you have it.  I went first. Your turn.

By Alexandra Moe

The sites are strikingly different in an area just a few hours outside of our Nation’s capital. Deep in Southern West Virginia there is a distinct, almost gloomy appeal, no cell phone service for miles (many residents have never even owned a cell phone), and a sense of community unlike any place in this country. The area is consumed by hard working Americans who fight for what they believe no matter who is listening. It is here in Appalachia, in the Boone County hollers that residents are contesting the practice of mountaintop removal mining. They feel they have been called to action and are in the midst of a fight to save the culture and land of their region.  (watch story below)  

Larry Gibson has been living atop Kayford Mountain his whole life. His family’s land sits on 50 acres of coal seams that the coal industry wants nothing more than to buy. The problem? He refuses to sell. (watch extended interview below)

“You see,” Gibson said inside his small cabin, “They are not only destroying my mountains, they are destroying the way of life, the culture that will never come back again….I would rather see this place grow back up into the wild than have the industry destroy it.”

Gibson is the lone holdout on Kayford or, as he calls it, his “island.” Mountaintop removal mining is literally taking place all around him.

The magnitude of the mountaintop removal operations where they blow up the top parts of the mountains to reach the coal beneath is hard to comprehend without visiting the region. It is only then that you see grey dirt across miles of land scattered about with rocks. The green patches are few and far between and animal life seems almost non-existent.

Quinnie Richmond can relate to the destruction that Gibson witnesses on a daily basis. She lives in what was once the comfortable, friendly town of Lindytown.

“I’ve had a good life here,” Mrs. Richmond said inside one of the only homes left in the depopulated town. But added that as of recently, “I don’t like it here – it is too dangerous.”

Mountaintop removal hovers above what was once Lindytown. But now, the streets are deserted, the homes have been torn down, and all the residents besides the Richmond family have been run out.

“Quinnie Richmond is now 85 years old and she has basically witnessed it,” Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition organizer Maria Gunnoe continues, “That this community she spent her life in has been destroyed and she has witnessed it from her window.”

Gunnoe has been fighting this type of coal mining since 1997 for reasons like the disappearance of Lindytown. Gunnoe and Gibson have a common bond in their fight – they fight for their people, for the land, and for what they believe is right.  (watch extended interview below)

“You can’t have mountaintop removal and communities, you have to have one or the other,” Gunnoe said standing outside the Richmond’s house. “It is going to take a revolution to stop mountaintop removal.”

The new TV commercial trend toward using existing popular music -- instead of commissioning an original piece of music -- has a substantial downside. Its like putting your song on "repeat" for the rest of your life until you never want to hear it anymore.

"The Holiday Song" by Vampire Weekend? Ruined. Ditto "The Train Song" by Vashti Bunyan, "Smokestack Lightning" by Howlin' Wolf, "I've Been Everywhere" by Johnny Cash. Shot. Then last night -- I think it was a commercial for Samsung -- I heard "Mercy" by Duffy. Here we go. "Mercy" fans might as well kiss it goodbye.

Just a little music diversion from the news of the day and the business at hand. We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

By Andrew K. Franklin, NBC News

In the summer of 1959, an out of work 20-year old college student with dreams of being a reporter knocked on the door of CBS News. His name was Jeff Gralnick, and he was hired that day as a desk assistant – a copy boy. It was the beginning of one of the most accomplished and wide-ranging careers in the history of broadcast journalism – a career that spanned much of the history of television news itself, and ended only with his death Monday night, May 9, at the age of 72.

Jeff Gralnick played a major role at the news divisions of CBS, ABC, NBC. He was one of the first producers on 60 Minutes, and served as Executive Producer of both ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC’s Nightly News. He worked with many of the best-known and most respected figures in the business, including Mike Wallace, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams. And he was at the center of some of the biggest news stories of our time: Vietnam; the Kennedy assassination, the space race, the Gulf war, and countless political conventions, presidential campaigns, debates and election nights.

He saw the transformation of television news from black and white filmed reports on 15-minute evening newscasts to the global reach of satellites and the Internet and the spread of instant global communication. It was a revolution he not only witnessed first-hand, but helped bring about, remaining on its leading edge for more than half a century.

For all his accomplishments, Jeff’s most lasting legacy may be the countless people he mentored over the years – he’d prefer to say helped – who are employed throughout the industry to this day. He was a remarkable teacher – tough and demanding, but eager to share his hard-won experience. He expected the best of those he worked with, and usually got it, because it was evident to everyone that he also demanded the best of himself. He was a fierce competitor, and an intense and memorable character, known and admired for his professionalism and integrity. In a business full of people who love to tell stories, there may be more stories told about him than anyone else.

Jeff Gralnick was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 3, 1939. He once said he wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up, but his true calling was journalism. He was the sports editor of his high school and college newspapers, and as a teenager he got a job working as a copy boy and starting writer for the International News Service. When INS merged with United Press in 1958, Gralnick found himself out of a job – until a neighbor came to the rescue. John Horn was a television critic for the Herald Tribune. Horn lived down the street from the Gralnicks, and told Jeff’s father that he’d heard about an opening at CBS News.

Gralnick got the job, becoming a desk assistant on Douglas Edwards with the News, the forerunner to the CBS Evening News. The executive producer at the time was Don Hewitt, who later created 60 Minutes. Jeff went on to become a writer – a skill that served him throughout his career – working with Harry Reasoner and then Walter Cronkite. He worked on the CBS News assignment desk, and he was running that desk on the November day in 1963 when John F. Kennedy was killed.

He became special events producer for CBS News, handling coverage of space launches, political conventions and presidential elections – and meeting his future wife Beth, a CBS colleague. He went to Vietnam in 1968, at the height of the war there, covering the Tet Offensive and the battle for Khe Sanh as an on-air reporter. He came back to join the fledgling 60 Minutes and reunite with his old boss Don Hewitt.

Gralnick briefly left television news in 1971 to serve as press secretary for George McGovern during his unsuccessful bid for the presidency. When he returned the following year, it was to join ABC News, where he worked with his old colleague Harry Reasoner as a field producer on the ABC Evening News. Gralnick spent the next two decades at ABC, during an era when the network’s news division grew to dominance under the leadership of its pioneering president Roone Arledge. Gralnick served twice as executive producer of World News Tonight, and as vice president and executive producer of special events, produced ABC’s coverage of conventions, elections, and breaking news such as the Challenger disaster and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In 1993, Jeff took a call that would change his fortunes once again – along with those of yet another network news division. Tom Brokaw called Gralnick to ask if he would come over to NBC News to serve as executive producer of the Nightly News. It was just the sort of challenge that Gralnick thrived on throughout his career. NBC News was in disarray, and Nightly had fallen to third place. Gralnick responded, taking charge of the broadcast and helping transform and revitalize it. Under his leadership, Nightly News rebounded. It would eventually reach first place, where it has remained ever since.

He was known for his blunt, plainspoken style. At the end of a long day producing Nightly News, he would sometimes say to his staff as he headed for the door, “Don’t call me unless a plane flies into the World Trade Center.” It was a remark that more than one stunned colleague would remember years later when the unthinkable actually happened. 

Gralnick returned to ABC News in 1996 at the urging of Roone Arledge, becoming vice president, and taking up a new challenge – the Internet. Though a veteran of television news, Gralnick embraced the Web, and was among the first to see its potential. He helped create ABCNews.com, a successful early marriage of old and new media.

Next came the world of cable news. Gralnick went to CNN to serve a two-year stint as Executive Vice President of Financial News. After that, he decided to be his own boss for a while, forming E-Splosion Consulting in 2001, with clients that included Public Television, CNBC, the University of Southern California and once again, NBC News. Soon thereafter, Gralnick extended his run as producer to many of the top anchors in the business, joining MSNBC to serve as Executive Producer of The News with Brian Williams. He remained in that role until Williams was named heir to Tom Brokaw as anchor of NBC Nightly News.

Gralnick became a special consultant to NBC News president Steve Capus, focusing on ways to grow NBC News and MSNBC internationally, from Africa to Europe to Asia and South America. He served as Steve’s liaison to msnbc.com, NBC’s joint venture with Microsoft, drawing on his expertise in the world of online news. And the thrill of getting his teeth into a big story never left Gralnick, who served as a producer to Brian Williams on Election Night, 2008.

In his early 60’s, Jeff was diagnosed with cancer. He beat it, for a time. Always open to a new challenge, he decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak in Africa. The inspiration, he claimed, was something he found in a fortune cookie: “As soon as you feel too old to do something, do it.” 

Jeffrey Charles Gralnick – he’d prefer you call him Jeff – loved to work, loved to win, and loved to teach the many who followed him how to excel at both. As he once instructed a young producer at NBC: “Always demand what is right. Never accept second best.”

Jeff is survived by his wife of 41 years, Beth Gralnick, their son Robert, daughter Kate, son-in- law Tim Surber, and a grandson, Adam.

What we're following: 

- Big Muddy floods Memphis, pushes south towards Vicksburg

- Peace Corps volunteers speak out on rape

- Teen who faked pregnancy relieved to come clean

And did you see...

- A flawed field? Don't count out 2012 candidates

- Cicadas emerge again in U.S. South

- Italians rattled by monster earthquake prediction

NBC's Kevin Tibbles writes:

So much has been written about the heartache that has befallen Detroit in recent years. The population has plummeted from 2 million during the boom days of the 1950s to about 700,000 today. As people fled the city, they left behind whole neighborhoods of abandoned houses--some 70,000 derelict and deteriorating homes today. But while the people population of the Motor City has fallen, the stray dog population has skyrocketed.

Conservative estimates suggest there are some 50,000 strays on the streets. That's roughly the human population of Niagara Falls, New York, or Pensacola, Florida. They live day-to-day, sleep in dilapidated buildings, have litters in the closets of vacant homes. Some have been abandoned by their owners, others are second- or third-generation untamed. They scrounge for food and shelter, and, as one observer told me, travel in packs for social order and protection.

Seeing what was happening to 'man's best friend' in his hometown left local resident Dan Carlisle, as he says, "sad and mad. Carlisle is a Detroit rapper who goes by the name of Hush. He's from the same neighborhood that gave the music world Eminem, and performs with him in music videos. Hush teamed up with Californian Monica Martino to form the Detroit Dog Rescue.

With almost military precision, DDR volunteers comb backstreets and alleyways looking for dogs. With a caravan of SUVs and pickup trucks, they seek out canines that are always hungry, often sick and frightened. So far this year, dozens of strays have been taken from the streets and placed in foster homes or adopted by new families.

The city's own Animal Control department is so overwhelmed by strays that the local shelters are full. Roughly 80 percent of dogs picked up here are euthanized. Detroit Dog Rescue is now working on funding for a 'No Kill' shelter in the Motor City.

"I've had a dog look at me and say like "Thank you," says Hush. "When a dog comes up to me and puts his head down and rolls over and just submits to you it's like… "Help."

As Detroit struggles to put itself right, the members of the Detroit Dog Rescue believe those inhabitants who don't have voices of their own should never be left to fend for themselves.

Legendary news producer Jeff Gralnick, who worked for CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN during a half-century in broadcast news and led the top-rated broadcasts of both "Nightly News with Tom Brokaw" and "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings," has died. He was 72.

NBC News President Steve Capus issued the following statement:

I have terrible news to share with the NBC News family. We have lost Jeff Gralnick. He passed away at his home last night at the age of 72.

It is cliché to label someone a pioneer in our profession… but in Jeff’s case, it was certainly true. Jeff was a veteran of all three broadcast networks. During a remarkable 52-year career, he changed the way news was produced, reported and presented on many different platforms. He was also a good friend and confidant to me personally. Given Jeff’s perspective, it is no wonder I frequently called upon him for his thoughts and advice on any number of issues this news division has faced through the years.

Jeff has been a special consultant to me focusing on ways to grow NBC News and MSNBC internationally. He has had great success doing just that from Africa to Europe to Asia and South America. He also was a steady hand for us on editorial matters, helping produce Brian Williams’ election night coverage.

Jeff began his broadcast news career in 1959 as a desk assistant for CBS News. Back then, the network news was a 15 minute broadcast called “Douglas Edwards with The News.” Jeff spent 11-years at CBS News. He was a reporter in Vietnam… produced special coverage of the space program and election coverage in 1964 and 1968. He was also one of the first producers for 60-Minutes, working with Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner.

He left our profession for a year to work as George McGovern’s press secretary. It was during this time that he first met a young reporter in California named Tom Brokaw.

In 1972, he joined ABC News as a field producer. He twice served as the Executive Producer of World News Tonight. As Vice President and Executive Producer of Special Events at ABC News, he produced coverage of every convention and election from 1980 to 1992 and countless special broadcasts and breaking news coverage.

In 1993, he came over to NBC News as Executive Producer of NBC Nightly News. In the three years that he served in that role, Jeff and Tom Brokaw combined forces to lift the broadcast from 3^rd place to 1^st, where it remains today. He has continued to be a valued member of the Nightly News family, frequently working with Brian on major events and a variety of production elements.

In 1996, Roone Arledge brought Jeff back to ABC as a Vice President and Assistant to the Chairman of News to help start ABCNews.com.

A move to CNN took place in 1999, before Jeff began consulting work in 2001. His clients have included CNBC, Maryland Public Television and the University of Southern California.

I could fill this note with his accomplishments, awards and professional biography. But more important, Jeff was very much a family man… devoted to his loving wife, Beth and their children, Bob and Kate.

This is a huge loss to our profession and to this news division. Our friend Jeff will be sorely missed.

Editor's Note: Due to the demands of a charity fundraiser for the Robin Hood Foundation tonight (during which Brian Williams will be hosting an event that will feature five Medal of Honor recipients and Lady Gaga...) he will not be posting to the Daily Nightly.  Nor is he likely to be singing with Lady Gaga later tonight. But check back here tomorrow for his likely return.

I'm about to meet with a studio visitor today: Army Lt. Col Kathy Champion. She's arriving here with her dog, Angel. Col. Champion is a 27-year Army veteran who survived a rough tour in West Baghdad, came home, and lost her sight to a viral infection that she picked up over there.  It destroyed her optic nerve.  It also threatened to wipe out her life, until she discovered her local chapter of Southeastern Guide Dogs. Reading Kathy's bio, I have a strong suspicion I might have met her in Iraq -- it will be our pleasure to host Kathy and Angel here tonight for Nightly News.

We hope you can join us tonight, and please have a good weekend.

The moment I saw the photo of the tail section on the wall of the Bin Laden compound, I knew it was no helicopter I'd ever seen or flown in before. While it had the basic signature and dimensions of a Blackhawk tail rotor, it was very different in terms of color, construction, materials and several key features -- like the rotors themselves and the "dishpan" covering over the mechanism. The military/aviation community is buzzing about the stealth Blackhawk program now, and pictures from the scene show children carrying off small bits of the aircraft -- while the Pakistanis took away the big pieces on tractor-pulled carts covered in tarps.  Early speculation is: the Chinese will be very anxious to study the fuselage material and whatever other technology can be gleaned. Many of the operational details of the mission should not ever be revealed, lest tactics and methods become exposed, affecting future missions and the safety of Americans.  But this one is out now, and ricocheting around the world.

The word from inside the FDNY is: if President Obama ate the hot dogs they usually serve at Engine 54/Ladder 4 in Midtown Manhattan today during his visit, there's going to be trouble.  I was glad to see him visit the landmark firehouse, which suffered such heavy losses on 9-11. It was great to see firefighters and Department brass I recognized alongside the President today prior to his visit to Ground Zero.

We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

This is a nice diversion from the news lately: last night on Twitter I caught word of a new YouTube video that uses yours truly as the baseline track -- a serious story we did about how the light bulb police are going to come to our houses in the dark of night, take our incandescent bulbs and replace them with those squiggly ones that take forever to warm up and must be disposed of in a hazmat suit in a licensed landfill.  I'll admit that might be a bit of an overstatement, but the original story was real, and as more Americans learn of the coming "mandated death of the light bulb," this issue may generate some traction.  It has now generated music and video.  With thanks to the St. Louis radio duo (and accomplished video duo) of Mason and Remy (who have also released a "making of" video) here you go...

Back to the day job: I hope you can join us for our broadcast tonight.

What we're following:

Will the White House release a photo of bin Laden?

Mississippi rising

Controversial study: salt & heart risks

And did you see...

America's youth fail civics

Ashcroft to head ethics at Blackwater

The President's biggest t.v. audience ever

First, I called and emailed Scott Pelley today.  Scott's a first-rate journalist and a fellow road warrior and I congratulate him on the move to the Evening News. He will be tough competition in this time slot...but we welcome him anyway!

Apologies are owed to our regular readers and viewers--we've been running hard for days--and just as I thought this week might afford us a breather came the news Sunday night that has us running even harder.  Tonight again we are doing a special hour-long broadcast, mostly on the bin Laden developments.  I wanted to let you know: In case the NBC Station in your area doesn't carry our second half-hour, you can find all of the coverage on our website tonight.  Not all stations in all markets can do what we ask and give us "clearance" to double our airtime on a given night, and we understand that. It's much more important that you find our coverage if you're looking for it. I'll write again when I can!

Please join us tonight.

In a recent Nightly News special series, "Far From Home," NBC's Jim Maceda profiles the men and women of the U.S. military who are continuing the mission in Afghanistan - you can watch the full reports, plus extended web-only interviews, below.