More than 500 people gathered together in a standing-room-only crowd in the Culp Auditorium on Nov. 29 to hear the personal story of Debbie Runions.
Runions has been HIV positive since 1992 and now she spends her time talking to groups all over the United States about her experience with the disease.
Runions lecture began as a visit to speak to an experimental class in the department of health sciences – HSCI 2500, which deals exclusively with the HIV virus and AIDS – and grew from there. Runions’ visit was sponsored by the department of health sciences, the College of Public and Allied Health and Alpha Xi Delta sorority.
As a member of the Tennessee State Department of Education’s HIV Prevention Program, Runions travels through the state speaking to students and professionals about what HIV and AIDS are, how they are transmitted, how they can be prevented, and what it is like to live with the disease every day.
She was also a member of President Bill Clinton’s Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS from 1995-1999. She spoke at Democratic National Convention in 1996 and has made two appearances on Regis and Kathie Lee Live.
“I had heard her at Milligan (College) a few years ago so I knew how powerful of a speaker she was,” said Laraine Powers, the instructor of the course on HIV/AIDS. “She’s a storyteller, she had them spellbound.”
It was Powers who first contacted Runions about visiting ETSU to speak. Powers told her about the class on HIV/AIDS and Runions accepted.
“That’s why she came, to help the class,” Powers said.
Powers said that several students told her they enjoyed the talk that Runions gave.
Powers also asked her students in the HIV/AIDS course to write their responses down for her. One student wrote that she was ‘blown away,’ ” Powers said.
Derek Campell, a student in the HIV/AIDS class, went to the lecture and said he enjoyed hearing Runions speak.
“It’s always good to hear a personal narrative of a person who has AIDS rather than read it in a text book,” Campbell said. “It puts a human face on a disease.”
Campbell feels that education is the way to put an end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
“People think they know a lot about AIDS because we hear about it all the time, but most people would be surprised at how little they actually do know about it,” he said.
One of the most important things a person can know about HIV/AIDS, Campbell said, is that it can only be transmitted in three ways: through use of an unclean intravenous needle, unprotected sex and by passing from mother to child.
HIV/AIDS has been increasing rapidly in the United States with 40,000 new cases reported each year, every year since 1988, Powers said.
“People can have it for 10 years and not even know it and still be passing it on to others,” Powers added.

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