Imagine this: You’re interning for CBS news and your job that day is escorting political luminaries like Colin Powell and Jesse Jackson to live on-air interviews with anchorwoman Katie Couric.

Easy, right? Cushy. Busy work for the intern. This way to the studio, sir.

Now how about with nearly 2 million people outside your door?

That’s what Heidi Schultheis had to deal with on Inauguration Day.

“It wasn’t just having them sail into the room. It was crazy. We’d get a phone call, go out and find this person in the crowd because they walked there and they couldn’t arrive by car,” Schultheis said. “It was so hectic. We had to walk Colin Powell two blocks through the crowds and then people start recognizing him.”

Schultheis ushered several others into the CBS studio — big names like former Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Clinton adviser Vernon Jordan, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and even hip-hop trailblazer Russell Simmons. But she did it with her usual efficiency and aplomb, I’m sure. One thing I always remember about Heidi when she interned here at the Pilot for a couple of summers was how unflappable she usually was.

I’ve worked with a lot of up-and-coming reporters over the years and Heidi definitely stuck out. You can tell the ones ticketed for the big-time almost immediately. They have a passion for digging, a zest for getting the story right and they never panic under pressure. Also, there’s that fearlessness to ask the most obnoxious question at the absolutely worst time because, well, because you need to get the story. I remember asking her to work up a story about the prosecution of a man accused of fatally stabbing a sea lion. It was tricky because authorities were sorting through whether the Orange County or federal prosecutors would get the case. Naturally, the usual territorial dance was in full-swing so no one was too eager to comment on it. I could see she was a big exasperated at the push-back she was getting and later the Orange County prosecutors slammed us for the speculation that the feds would big-foot them. They did everything they could privately to undermine her reporting, but I knew it was solid. Guess what? The feds snatched up that case so Heidi was right.

Then there was the time a fledgling presidential candidate from Illinois was coming to Newport Beach to do a little fundraising. It was spring of 2007. No one was particularly interested in covering some political longshot, but Heidi knew a good story when she saw one. Nearly a year later Barack Obama won the Iowa caucus and we know the rest of that story, don’t we?

Her first year she interned with us Heidi pitched a story about  her second-grade teacher retiring. Did we think that was worth a feature? But, of course. And in her hands it turned into a lovely tribute.

So it fires me up to hear this Newport Harbor High School Class of 2005 grad interning in DC. She’s due to graduate from Georgetown this spring and if the folks at CBS are smart they’ll hire her full-time.

Coincidentally, the CBS studio where she works is on 1st Street between C and D streets, meaning I was right near her for hours while she ushered in Couric’s guests. I meant to try to call her while I was in town, as I did many folks, but I was just too damned busy. I spent most of my time there working. Heidi was crazy busy too. So busy she had to sneak peeks at the TV to catch some of the inaugural proceedings.

“I watched the oath and a good deal of the speech from the newsroom, but toward the end of the speech I ran all the way up to the roof,” she said. “It was 15 degrees, the wind was blowing, but I could see the Capitol and faintly hear the speech.”

I know the feeling. After all the turmoil and struggling to get in to the inauguration and despite my lousy view I was still grateful I made it in. We were witnesses to history. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

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