RADFORD -- Justin Ward sat five rows back from the stage during a recent White House press conference with President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He felt like he was living in someone else’s life when he entered the East Room.

“I can't believe I had the opportunity to even walk through the gates much less sit in a press conference inside the White House,” Ward said. “I had friends and family members texting me saying they saw me on TV. I have to tell you, it still feels really weird to talk about this, being the American history buff that I am, and after years of hearing what all has happened in the White House. Actually being there made me weak in the knees. No kidding.”

It was a wonderful moment for the rising RU senior from Christiansburg who interned this summer with CBS Evening News. It was just days earlier that Ward was ordered to run down the street to a pharmacy and purchase a Diet Coke for CBS News anchor Harry Smith. “That’s when I remembered, ‘Oh, yeah. I’m an intern,’” he said.

Fortunately for Ward, the internship has been focused more on gaining experience in broadcast news and less about purchasing sodas.

Two weeks into the summer program, Ward worked out of the House and Senate press galleries, and he gained an official business pass that permitted him to attend numerous press conferences, including another conference with President Obama, this time in the White House Rose Garden.

“I went to several press conferences on both sides of the Hill, including conferences with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator John McCain,” Ward said. “Let's just say I saw or met the majority of congressmen who work on the Hill. And after the visitors center closed and people left, I sometimes hung out in the rotunda and statutory hall by myself just admiring everything; that experience in itself is out of this world.”

Ward enjoyed his internship work at the news bureau, meeting and striking up conversations with familiar faces from CBS News such as Bob Schieffer, Nancy Cordes, Bill Plante, Chip Reid, Mark Knoller and Wyatt Andrews, who has brothers and sisters who have graduated from RU.

“It's been an amazing experience,” Ward said. “Just to be here, amongst the best of network news is an experience in itself. I have done so many cool things all over the city here in Washington, D.C. with CBS News that I feel like I'm home.”

In addition to his work in Washington, Ward visited the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, where he met and chatted with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, who invited Ward to stick around for the live broadcast. Ward was at the network the day CBS legendary broadcaster Walter Cronkite died. “It was sad, but very inspirational to hear stories from people who had worked with him,” Ward said.

As for his work in the bureau, Ward conducts research, works with producers to select sound bites for newscasts and, just before the CBS Evening News airs, he prepares the control room for the bureau chief, senior producer and other news producers.

Ward, who served as news editor for The Tartan last year and has been a radio announcer for three years at WVRU, is preparing for his dream career as a broadcaster for a major news network. He got his foot in the door at CBS News a year ago when he participated in a shadowing program at the network. He had decided to spend his spring break in Washington, D.C., and hoped to find a shadowing opportunity at one of the national news agencies for the duration of his trip.

Ward called NBC, ABC, CNN and FOX, but none offered anything that provided the opportunity he had in mind. Just as he was about to give up, Ward phoned CBS with the same question, and the secretary forwarded his call to a senior producer of the CBS Evening News.

“He said he had never received a call like mine and would love to help me out,” Ward recalled. During the conversation, the CBS producer set up a two-day job shadowing opportunity while Ward was in the area.

“Right now, I believe I'm getting a glimpse into the future, and the future looks promising,” he said. “I just have to work my way here.”