Wooster Students Appear on 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'

Three first-years giggle through a segment with the audience

WOOSTER, Ohio (March 15) - Libba Smith and two of her first-year classmates - Jackie O'Dell and Kim Schmitz - became fast friends at The College of Wooster this past fall. In fact, the three hit it off so well, they decided to spend part of their spring break together in New York City. Their well-planned four-day excursion would include a trip to Ellis Island to visit the Statue of Liberty as well as stops in Times Square, Chinatown, and Rockefeller Center, where they joined the studio audience for a taping of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on March 8.

Smith, a big fan of the former Saturday Night Live star, and her friends ordered tickets ahead of time, and made their way to NBC's studio in time for the early evening taping. Little did they know that they would soon become part of the show. One of Fallon's shticks is a segment in which his band (The Roots) takes the name of a member of the studio audience and creates an impromptu song about it. After engaging two audience members, Fallon made his way up the steps and across the aisle where Smith, who had raised her hand, was sitting with O'Dell and Schmitz. Fallon asked her name, which she explained came about because her big sister could not pronounce her given name, "Elizabeth." Fallon then asked what she did for a living, and she responded by saying that she was a student at The College of Wooster. The two joked back and forth before the band played its tribute to her name in Barbershop Quartet style: "Her name was Libba from The College of Wooster with no ribbons on her hair, and if someone made a movie about her life, it be called 'Libbin' on a Prayer'" - not exactly Grammy-winning lyrics, but certainly worth the 15 seconds of fame.

Smith and her classmates were thrilled by the exposure, which lit up her Facebook page. "It was really fun," said Smith, an English major from Carthage, Tenn., (near Nashville). "I heard from a lot of friends who saw the show." Not only was the College's name mentioned six times, but Fallon actually pronounced Wooster correctly (at least four of the five times he said it). To see the show online, visit the "Late Night" website.