Precollege I knew I wanted to get into broadcast journalism so I got this weird little on-air gig at a local access channel on a community events show sponsored by the local chamber of commerce. No one saw it in the town where I went to school so I was never recognized.
Went to ISU and months after arriving **** blows up and ISU sells the TV station and I ultimately decide to do a 180 with my major and go the science route.
Now, I get interviewed for radio and TV news shows at least monthly as a part of my job. The irony of it all sometimes makes me smirk like an idiot on camera. My husband's counterparts and customers hear/see the interviews all over the state and, I think, give him a little grief over it. I tell him this is why I didn't change my name when we got married - to protect him. I do like it when my parents see it or people tell them they heard/saw me because I know it makes them proud...and they were really upset when I changed my major from journalism.
I've tried to kept my favorite newspaper photos. The Cedar Rapids Gazette followed me around for a day a couple years ago and eventually took of pic of me with my shades on. I look like a rock star lost in the woods pointing at random trees. A loooong time ago the DM Register published a ridiculously large picture of me standing in a cornfield by a really tall guy - I am more on the vertically-challenged side of life. I look like a midget.
Some of the offbeat interviews I've done have gotten more notice than the work stories. How to be a pirate at a Jimmy Buffett concert got a lot of play, opening up a beehive and the camera man wouldn't wear protective gear so the whole time I'm moderately freaked about him getting stung and things going awry in the middle of nowhere, and a recent story about the states's oldest mayor was picked up by other stations around Iowa.
