I was born in Chicago, Ill. Fearing I would become a member of a gang my mother moved us to Jacksonville Florida, where I became a high school drop out.
After becoming a single mother on welfare at the age of 20, I realized I needed to find a way to provide for me and my baby. Get out of the system, if you will. While attending Florida Community College for my GED I discovered the Radio and Television Broadcasting class. Initially I wanted to become a News Anchor for a local television station. After interning at WTLV for a summer I realized that was not the ideal career for me. So, one day after sitting in my room crying for sometime I thought..hey..it was a radio and television class. I picked up the phonebook and started dialing. I called every radio station in the book until I got a bite with HOT 101.5. I asked the Promotions Director at the time, Mickey Johnson, if he needed any interns. He said yes. I jumped in my car and headed to the station.
I worked 3 or 4 months for free. Realizing I could do this no longer I went to Mickey and told him I couldn’t afford the gas. I was hired as the Promotions Assistant about a week later. Right about that time the station was sold to a company by the name of Jacor Broadcasting. I had the opportunity to work with Kevin Matheny. He thought I was a complete idiot. I was always blamed for the bad things that happened and was never allowed to defend myself. All of the meetings about me were held behind closed doors behind my back. Just as the hatchet was about to come down on me, the General Manager and new Program Director Doc Wynter came to me. They told me they couldn’t believe I was as stupid as I being portrayed and asked if I would be interested in moving into the Production Department. I remember it like it was yesterday. I said “I can’t promise you I will be the next best thing to sliced bread but I will give it a try”.
My first commercial was for a dry cleaner. They LOVED it! Next ting I knew I was asked to cover a weekend announcer shift. The announcer was fired for stealing that week and they needed someone badly. I fought it for about 3 days then finally gave in. I’m a behind the scene type gal, but I did it. Boy did I hear about it. “You sound awful. You need to wake up” they would say. So after another crying session I pulled my self together and got better. Within months I became the Evening announcer. Months after that, I became the Midday announcer. Yes, things have moved rather quickly for me in my 10 year career.
Now I am working with one of the best in the industry, Mike Love. He took a huge chance bringing me here to Columbia. He had a huge task at hand and needed help getting it done. Within the first year we took WWDM FM from an embarrassing # twenty-something to the #1 radio station in the market.
