WRAL's Bill Leslie gives a thumbs up as he starts his 32-story descent.
Brandy Lail at the front desk probably said it best: Watching you rappel down that building was both terrific and terrifying. I wouldn't call myself an adrenaline junkie but Over the Edge was right up there among the most exciting yet frightening things I've ever done.
After a clumsy start when my legs folded like an auditorium chair I was able to refocus and form the perfect L with my body and lean back into a hammock of air. I locked the speed control device in my left hand and waited for the show to begin.
The show was WRAL's Noon News and the start of Elizabeth Gardner's first weather segment. Elizabeth, who went Over the Edge in 2012, led the live questioning with Michelle Marsh and Lynda Loveland. My goal was simple: to project a calm and positive attitude to the ordeal that would take me 30 floors down the face of the Wells Fargo Building in Raleigh.
Other than a quick three-story practice rappel in September this was my first attempt at the sport. The advice that everyone gave me was don't look down. And I didn't. When I did get a little nervous I remembered how important this was. WRAL helped raise a record $200,000 for Special Olympics with 180 rappellers gliding down the glass and concrete over two days.
Our broadcast on Friday was truly a team effort. Tony Gupton led the engineering cause. Tony rarely makes a mistake. That's because he thinks of everything that can go wrong and prepares for it. Tony had seen a similar network broadcast recently and noticed that the rappeller's audio dropped out about half way down. Tony's solution was for me to wear two microphones with one receiver at the top of the building and other at the bottom. It worked ! I also wore two different ear pieces again, to duplicate my communication with the station.
The WRAL team included Keith Baker who rappelled down the building next to me. Keith sported a camera on his helmet to capture the thrill and occasional panic of a newsman out of his element. Up top Ed Wilson manned his camera and Tony Patterson provided engineering assistance. The street level camera was manned by Tom Normanly. Tony Gupton orchestrated Over the Edge in a truck on Fayetteville Street. We also used a tall camera position back at the station to show a tiny silhouette of Keith and me rappelling. Everything worked to perfection.
If there was a hitch it was my sense of timing. I actually rappelled too fast for broadcast purposes. We started the trip down with the first weather report in WRAL's Noon News and the goal was the end in the weather during the second half hour. I was zipping down at a rate of about three floors per minute. Producer Miriam Melvin asked me to slow down. So I stopped for two five minute rests and waved at the people inside Wells Fargo Building.
The end was sweet. On the 12th floor I could hear the sweet sounds from Wide Open Bluegrass. By floor five I could smell some delicious food cooking on the street and then came the thunderous cheers of the crowd gathered at the bottom. My wife, Cindy, rushed to give me a passionate kiss when I hit the ground. I was escorted to a podium where Keith Baker and I accepted our medals for making the descent.
My immediate thought was I wouldn't mind doing this again or something else like this. Two days later I received a call from the Golden Knights asking me if I'd like to jump out of an airplane with the US Army's crack parachute team. I told them: You bet I would!
WRAL-TV Anchor Bill Leslie participated in the Over the Edge fundraiser for Special Olympics NC on Friday, October 3, 2014.
Thanks to WRAL-TV's Bill Leslie for this capcom story and to Bob Ayers & Megan O'Donnell for these capcom photos.
A volunteer helps WRALs Bill Leslie get all his safety gear secured for his Over the Edge rappel.
WRALs Keith Baker gets ready to do double duty rappelling and capturing Bill Leslie on camera.
WRALs Bill Leslie gets ready to go Over the Edge.
WRALs Bill Leslie gets ready to go Over the Edge as WRALs Ed Wilson captures him on camera.
WRALs Bill Leslie goes Over the Edge for NC Special Olympics.
WRALs Bill Leslie starts his 32-story descent.
WRALs Keith Baker gets ready to go Over the Edge.
WRALs Keith Baker goes over the edge.
WRALs Bill Leslie gets ready to go Over the Edge.
WRALs Keith Baker carries his camera on his helmet.
WRALs Bill Leslie gives a thumbs up as he starts his 32-story descent.
WRALs Bill Leslie literally going over the edge.
WRALS Bill Leslie (left) and WRALs Keith Baker rappel down the Wells Fargo building as WRALs Ed Wlison captures them from above.
WRALs Bill Leslie (right) makes his way down the Wells Fargo building as WRALs Keith Baker captures the action on camera.
WRALs Ed Wilson captures the action from the top of the Wells Fargo Building.
WRAL.com live-streamed Leslies Over the Edge experience while the WRAL Noon News showed live shots throughout the newscast.
WRALs Keith Baker (right) tries some acrobatics to get the right camera angle to capture WRALs Bill Leslie for the noon news.
WRALs Bill Leslie makes his way down the Wells Fargo building.
WRALs Bill Leslie is relieved to have made it safely to the ground.
WRALs Bill Leslie is happy as his feet hit solid ground.
WRALs Bill Leslie finishes his descent with a nod towards WRALs Tom Normanly who has been capturing the action from the ground.
WRALs Bill Leslie gets a big kiss from his wife, Cindy, after he makes it safely to the ground.
A happy Bill Leslie poses with two Special Olympians after his Over the Edge climb is done.
WRALs Bill Leslie is all smiles after he finishes his Over the Edge rappel.
WRALs Keith Baker poses with two Special Olympians after his Over the Edge descent.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
WRAL's Bill Leslie gives a thumbs up as he starts his 32-story descent.
