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Seahawks Announce Bill Nye As Week 8 12 Flag Raiser

Former Boeing engineer and TV star Bill Nye retraces his local roots as Seahawks’ Week 8 12 Flag Raiser.

12 Flag Raiser - Week 8

Engineer, Scientist and TV personality Bill Nye's studies have taken him from his native Washington, DC to Washington state and beyond. Retracing his early roots in Seattle, Nye will serve as the 12 Flag Raiser for Week 8's home matchup against the Cleveland Browns.

Nye graduated from Cornell University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1977, moving Northwest to Seattle to work for Boeing. During his nine years with the corporation, Nye would create several inventions to improve air travel, including the hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor tube (ripple damper) - used on Boeing’s 747 airplanes to reduce noise and pulsations. A year after joining Boeing, Nye won the first round of a lookalike contest for bearing resemblance to Comedian Steve Martin, sparking a new career path. Over the nine-year course of his time at Boeing, Nye spent his evenings on the Seattle comedy circuit, quitting in 1986 to tell jokes for a living.

That year, Nye would use his education and comedic wit to carve a lane for himself, landing a role on local sketch comedy show Almost Live. Correcting host John Keister on the pronunciation of the word "gigawatt" sparked the nickname "Bill Nye the Science Guy," eventually becoming a sketch of its own on the show.

Nye's growing popularity on the series would lead to him landing an opportunity to discuss science topics on the radio at KJR in 1988. Between 1989-1993, Nye's celebrity would grow as a tv personality in the world of science, starring in local educational series Fabolous Wetlands before becoming nationally known on Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club (1991-1993). On September 10, 1993, Seattle's KCTS-TV debuted Bill Nye The Science Guy, featuring Nye educating the masses on the intricacies of science. The 19-time Emmy Award winning series aired for six seasons, becoming nationally-syndicated by PBS in 1994.

In-addition to educating and entertaining the pacific northwest, Nye worked for improvement of quality-of-life for all. From 1992-1994, Nye served on the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board. The longtime Mercer Island native now raises the 12 Flag during Seattle's throwback week commemorating the 1990's - a decade in which Nye rose to fame to make education fun for the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

The Seahawks arrived at Lumen Field for a Week 8 matchup with the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, October 29, 2023.

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