SHREWSBURY – She won an Emmy before graduating college – and she credits her success to her Shrewsbury roots.
Katelyn Smith, a 2022 graduate of Shrewsbury High School, was recently awarded an Emmy alongside about 25 colleagues for the “outstanding graphic design” of NBC’s broadcast of the 2024 Paris Olympics. At just 21 years old, she has received one of the highest awards in the television industry.
“It’s genuinely insane. I won an EMMY before graduating college. It’s pretty surreal, and I’d like to thank all the people in Shrewsbury who were teaching me – my teachers, Shrewsbury Media Connection (SMC) – for really giving me that baseline to soar,” Smith told the Community Advocate in early June.
Smith was always interested in working in television, but it wasn’t until attending Shrewsbury High School that she started to explore the business. Learning at the school’s Television Studio, Smith created videos, produced shows, and continued to explore her passion.
Looking to get involved even more, Smith interned at SMC, covering late-night Select Board and School Committee meetings. At SMC, Smith gained even more production experience, and by the time she was set to graduate from Shrewsbury High, she made the choice to go to Ithaca College – one of the nation’s best schools for those looking to get into the television biz.
Smith worked at WCVB Channel 5 and eventually got an internship at NBC’s graphic integrations team. There, she worked behind-the-scenes, creating the colorful animation and graphics that television viewers across the U.S. enjoy.
“A lot of people don’t realize how large the graphics space can be for a live production like this. Graphics integration – we were the bridge between the graphic designers and what made it to air. A lot of what I did was basically take designs made by the Creative [Department] and put them together in our system,” said Smith.
For the Olympics in particular, Smith worked on dozens of graphics that made it on air, reaching millions of households across the United States and beyond. One of her graphics – a clock showing the next time emerging star Stephen Nedoroscik would compete on the pommel horse – caught people’s attention.
“I thought of it as a very full-circle moment. This guy from Worcester competed in the Olympics, and I’m from Shrewsbury and I made a graphic to layer on top of it. People were like, ‘No way they put a clock on the pommel horse guy.’ I was like, ‘That’s me. I’m that person.’ I found it very rewarding,” said Smith.
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