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A PCC education has taken him around the world covering hard-hitting news and walking the front of lines of history for three decades. David Rust, PCC class of 1976, is a senior cameraman for the network news station, CNN. Rust was chosen by the Community College League of California as one of five recipients of their annual California Community College Distinguished Alumni Award.

Mikki Bolliger, the former advisor to the Courier, and Rust’s teacher at PCC, saw enormous journalistic potential in him.

“He took to journalism immediately,” Bolliger said about his early years.

Rust is a man who has achieved great success, and has never forgot his roots in community college. “I felt it was the core of everything I know now from the writing to the ethics,” he said about his early and fruitful education at PCC.

When Bolliger heard that Rust was to be distinguished with this award, she knew that he deserved it.

“He really represents what community college is all about. He is successful and still gives credit to the school and his time with the Courier,” Bolliger said about her great admiration and respect for her former student.

The world of news found Rust when he least expected it. In 1970, he was a student at Kent State University in Ohio, as well as a member of the ROTC.

There was a student protest on campus that year; the National Guard was called in and in the midst of the conflict, four Kent State students were shot and killed.

The media descended upon his school. The images and stories that rose from this tragedy inspired a young Rust to change the world in his own way.

Shortly after, he moved back to Los Angeles. “I was taking my own pictures,” Rust said in a telephone interview. “My parents suggested I go to PCC to really learn photography.” Once enrolled, he took every photography and journalism course the school offered.

“He was a very good writer, but he gravitated towards the [camera],” recounts Bolliger.

Rust took the advice he now gives to students: “The easiest way to be successful is to follow a course of study that you are passionate about.”

In his years at PCC, he was the photo editor for the Courier newspaper. This was Rust’s first time working on a publication, so those issues could be considered his rookie cards.

“What amazed me is people read [the Courier],” he says reminiscing about his cherished years at PCC. Those years were especially memorable because he later married the editor of that very newspaper, his wife Agnes.

The two PCC alumni now live in Georgia, but Rust is always on the move. He is currently covering breaking news stories for CNN as the senior cameraman, and making his own documentaries on the side.

After all his travels and success, Rust still looks upon his experience at PCC with great pride and humility. He is still passionate about what he does.

As a man who used his community college roots to climb the highest mountains in his field, all with a camera in hand, Rust urges all students to, “never, ever stop learning.

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