When a journalist walked into young Sheinelle Jones’ school in Wichita, Kansas on Career Day, an epiphany struck the fifth grader like lightning: She wanted to be a news anchor.
After graduating from Northwestern in 2000, she worked her way up through the local markets and arrived at NBC News in 2014. And now, after anchoring the “3rd Hour of Today” and “Weekend Today,” the 47-year-old sits alongside Jenna Bush Hager for the fourth hour of NBC’s morning programming. “Today with Jenna & Sheinelle” launched Jan. 12.
“We were the holiday girls,” Bush Hager tells USA TODAY of days when the duo filled in for Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford, who hosted from 2008-2019. “When they would go on holiday, we would sit next to each other and I remember really laughing.”
When thinking of how a job offer to permanently join Bush Hager might come, Jones envisioned something like a small town parade.
“I think I pictured, like, NFL signing day or something with streamers and ribbons,” she says lightheartedly, alongside Bush Hager, 44. “Can I get a marching band or something like that?… My fifth-grade self was like, ‘There are going to be streamers!’”
