In a dimly lit back lot of WSIU, locked behind two large black metal doors, lies boxes and racks of orange plastic-covered hexagon-shaped boxes, each filled to the top with lighting equipment that can help brighten futures for SIU students.

Midway through the fall 2024 semester, the SIU School of Media Arts got a $358,522 donation of high-quality lighting and grip equipment from one of the world’s largest lighting and grip rental companies, MBS Equipment Company. 

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The equipment arrived on two trucks from opposite coasts of the United States. The equipment was emptied in the back studio of WSIU with the careful oversight of the man behind this donation, AJ Rice.

Rice, a current student at the SIU School of Digital Media, is finishing his double-major in Cinema and Theater. Two summers ago, Rice was interning at Village Roadshow Entertainment Group out in Los Angeles when his mom’s best friend Marti Rider took him to a bar to meet some old friends including Executive Vice President & Global GM of MBS Joe Dougherty. 

“So while I was in LA doing my creative development internship, Marti took me to a bar to socialize with her old friends,” Rice said. “She knew Joe. I told him where I came from, and mainly kind of why SIU was a good pick for me. He was like ‘oh my gosh equipment! You guys need equipment? I can help you out.’” 

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For the next six months after that interaction, Rice was in Zoom calls with Dougherty trying to turn their bar conversation into reality. 

“I started talking to him with other executives at MBS Equipment Company to think about ‘What would an equipment donation look like? What are the needs that I see from the school?’” Rice said.

In January 2024, Dougherty offered Rice an opportunity to intern at MBS. Between then and the summer, the talks of an equipment donation to SIU froze. After Rice worked at MBS and finalized a list, the conversations thawed out and started back up again.

On the last day of Rice’s working at MBS in his summer internship, Dougherty gave Rice the list of what MBS was going to donate to SIU. Dougherty also pulled a few favors to make sure that SIU didn’t pay for the shipments.

On Rice’s way back from his internship, he called Robert Spahr, current director of the School of Media Arts at SIU, to break the news of the up-and-coming donation. Spahr worked quickly to clear space for the new equipment. Spahr over email, stated how the equipment would be used.

“It will be used in the classroom for our production courses and some amount of equipment will also be allocated for use by RSOs,” he wrote. “Once the equipment arrives and is inventoried, there will likely be equipment of use by other schools within the College of Arts in Media such as the SoTD (School of Theater and Dance), and SoJA (School of Journalism and Advertising). WSIU might also benefit from some of the equipment,” Spahr wrote. 

Equipment was not the only thing MBS gave SIU; They also gave their first-ever partnership. The partnership makes it possible for more donations to SIU in the future and also opens the door for more SIU students to intern at MBS. 

“Think about it. The whole thing can turn around quite quickly. New building, new partnered internships with a huge company and new equipment, you can turn the whole school around quite fast. I think you just got to have people that work for it, you know?” Rice said.

The equipment now still sits in a pitch-black backlot space, guarded behind two large metal doors waiting for students and faculty of SIU to dig into the orange plastic-covered hexagon-shaped boxes and experiment with their new equipment.  

Videographer Will Elliott can be reached at [email protected]. To stay up to date on all your southern Illinois news, be sure to follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook and X @dailyegyptian.

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