Ask Savannah Guthrie what she misses the most about Tucson, and she doesn’t hesitate.
“Mexican food,” she said.
The “Today” show co-host called it “the number one priority” during any return trip to the Old Pueblo. “It’s funny because, of course, my family is so used to it and it’s probably the last thing they want to have, but I insist on it at least one night,” she said.
Guthrie will introduce “Today” viewers to her hometown — and one of its best-known Mexican restaurants — in a special segment that’s scheduled to air on Wednesday during the 8 a.m. hour local time.
“I think it’ll be a nice love letter to Tucson,” she said. “That’s certainly the intent.”
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“Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie poses at Old Main on the University of Arizona on Oct. 17, while filming a special segment on her hometown.
The University of Arizona graduate turned famous newswoman said she usually makes it back to town a couple of times a year to visit family, including her mom, who still lives in the same house that Guthrie grew up in. But last month’s trip was something else altogether.
“I’ll just say, we roll kind of deep with our camera crews and the producer, so, you know, we weren’t subtle,” she said. “It wasn’t a low-key visit this time. Usually it is.”
The segment was filmed in about eight hours on Oct. 17, after a good deal of advanced planning. “Today” producer Jennifer Long traveled to Tucson earlier in the month for a scouting trip that Guthrie said included “going to visit my mom, which was really cute.”
Then, she said, Long mapped out “this incredibly ambitious schedule” that started with the sunrise in Saguaro National Park and ended at the U of A, with stops in between at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, lunch at El Charro downtown and some mural painting with local artist Joe Pagac.
Savannah Guthrie holds Klaus the owl at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum on Oct. 17.
Along the way, Guthrie was greeted by Mayor Regina Romero, U of A President Suresh Garimella and the Desert Museum’s newest edition, a 7-month-old porcupine named Pinecone.
“He’ll be making his national debut on Wednesday,” she said with a laugh. “I got to walk him with a leash, which was hilarious and a great photo to bring home to my kids.”
The “Today” show crew also gathered additional footage when Guthrie wasn’t around, including the must-see spectacle of a sunset from Gates Pass.
“It was an aggressive schedule, let’s say that, but it was fun. We got a lot in,” she said.
Back on campus
Guthrie’s university visit marked her first time on campus since she gave the commencement address there in 2011. She was welcomed back with pomp and pom-poms, as she walked part of the mall and popped into Old Main.
“A lot of the places I went I definitely hadn’t been since I was in college,” she said, including her Pi Beta Phi sorority house, where she posed for selfies with an excited group of its current residents.
Once the filming was finished, Guthrie lingered in Tucson for a few days to enjoy a quiet weekend with her mom, her sister and her sister’s family.
The only other time she has done a piece like this about her hometown was in 2011, when the then-NBC White House correspondent came to Tucson to cover President Barack Obama’s visit four days after the Jan. 8 mass shooting targeting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Her story about the Old Pueblo shrouded in sadness closed out “NBC Nightly News” that evening.
“That was very meaningful to me,” Guthrie said. “It was really just one of those moments where I felt so much emotion, as everyone did, about our hometown and what I would wish that people knew about it.”
Savannah Guthrie chats with Tucson mural artist Joe Pagac while filming a “Today” show segment on her hometown on Oct. 17.
This time around, Guthrie worried that her television-tour-guide itinerary might be a little obvious. Then she realized she was just thinking like a Tucsonan.
“Really those are things that you don’t get to see back East,” she said. “People don’t see a Gila monster. They don’t see sunsets quite like that. They don’t see those cacti on the mountain. Those are some of the things that make (Tucson) so unique and special, so I was like, ‘You know, I think we gotta hit the classics.’”
First scoops
Guthrie was born in Australia but moved to Tucson with her family as a toddler. She attended Sunrise Drive Elementary, Manzanita Elementary and Orange Grove Junior High in the Catalina Foothills School District, then went to Amphitheater for high school, where she said her interests mostly involved ditching class and hanging out at the Carl’s Jr. near campus.
Future “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, third from the left in the back row, poses with her fellow Kangaroo Rats in an AYSO team photo from when she was a third grader in Tucson. Guthrie joked that this marked the end of her athletic career.
“I recently found some old Amphi report cards, which I did post on social media because they showed my poor academic record. At least some semesters, it was pretty lackluster,” she said. “I didn’t really get too motivated about anything until probably about halfway through college.”
That’s when she took an interest in the news business.
Guthrie never worked for the Arizona Daily Wildcat student newspaper, but she did write some stories for the Tombstone Epitaph for one of her reporting classes.
“I remember covering a young female football player. I remember going to Big Nose Kate’s, because obviously you go to the saloon to get a good story,” she said. “I still have all those clips. Those are my very first news articles. I definitely did not throw those away.”
Savannah Guthrie in 1992, when she was photographed for a guest column in the Tucson Citizen as a journalism student at the University of Arizona.
Guthrie also had a part-time job on the student crew at the local PBS station, where she learned a variety of behind-the-scenes skills and stoked a growing interest in television by working on “Arizona Illustrated” and other shows.
She graduated from the U of A in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and embarked on a local television career that took her to Columbia, Missouri, and then back to Tucson, where she spent about four years as a reporter and anchor at NBC affiliate KVOA Channel 4.
Then Guthrie went to law school at Georgetown University and worked as an attorney for a bit, before returning to broadcast journalism, first as a national trial reporter for CourtTV and then as a correspondent, anchor and eventually the chief legal analyst for NBC News.
Tucson “Today”
She began her co-hosting duties on “Today” in 2011 and won the job permanently in 2012.
Since then, the 2018 inductee into the U of A School of Journalism’s Hall of Fame has interviewed presidents, celebrities and all manner of other newsmakers. She has been both the guest host and the answer to a question on “Jeopardy!” And she appeared as herself in the final episode of “30 Rock” and in an episode from the final season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
But even after all that, the 53-year-old Guthrie said she was still caught by surprise last month, when she and her camera crew walked into El Charro and were greeted with a round of applause.
“Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie at Saguaro National Park on Oct. 17.
“How could it not make you feel great? It was such a warm welcome,” she said. “But for me, you know, I’ll always be Savannah from Tucson, so I don’t know what the fuss is about. They clapped and we laughed, and it was just hilarious.”
As of Monday, Guthrie said she hadn’t seen the final edited version of her segment on Tucson, and she wasn’t planning to. She thought it would be more fun to watch it for the first time — and react to it live — when it airs on Wednesday.
“We made the most of a few hours in town, that’s for sure,” she said. “The weather was perfect and people were so sweet and welcoming.”
One of her favorite parts, though, was getting to show Tucson off to her colleagues who traveled with her but weren’t remotely familiar with the place. She delighted in pointing out the different kinds of cactus and telling stories about her childhood here, building forts and running around in the desert.
“I’m emotional about it. I’m very proud of Tucson,” she said, her voice cracking a bit. “I think it’s an absolutely stunning and unique place to be from, and I’m really proud of it, so this has just been a joy.”
Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@tucson.com. On Twitter: @RefriedBrean
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