When did you decide you wanted to be a journalist?
I decided I wanted to be a journalist after watching Iola Johnson, the first African-American to co-anchor the 10pm news in the Dallas-Ft. Worth market. She just happened to be on Channel 8 WFAA-TV. I was about 12 years old and identified with her because she was someone who looked like me and she became an instant role model. My father came from a family eight where his siblings were either teachers, nurses, or worked for the post office and Iola Johnson coming into my living room every night at 10pm confirmed for me at a young age that I could aspire to do anything and that the possibilities were endless.

What’s your favorite thing to do in Dallas-Fort Worth?
Your Answer

If you could interview anyone alive you haven’t interviewed, who would you and why?
If I could interview anyone alive right now that I have interviewed it would be Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. They both broke barriers for women in the television industry. Barbara Walters was the first female to co-anchor the network evening news and I would love to learn to interview tactics. She has interviewed people all over the world and she has an incredible talent of getting anyone to open up and talk to her like she has known them all of her life. Oprah to me is fascinating as well, since she is one of the richest women in the world, because of being so real and connecting with women anywhere. She beat the odds of overcoming sexual abuse and not fitting into the stereotype of what an anchor should look like. I love her tenacity and compassion. She was told she would never make it in the television industry, because her hair was too thick, her eyes to wide apart, and because of her weight. I love those “look-at-me-now” stories that proved the critics wrong!

Tell us about a story that you are particularly proud to have brought to the public's attention.
One story that made an impact when I broke the story exclusively for WFAA-TV and brought it to the public’s attention was the shocking truth of teens fighting for kicks-- fight clubs so to speak in the Arlington area that involved a teenager videotaping other high school students fighting and then putting the graphic video to rap music and selling them as a DVD later. One video showed a teenager knocked unconscious. I learned he had to be taken by helicopter to the nearest hospital after receiving severe head trauma. The Arlington school district was unaware that many of the fights took place on school campus and parents were unaware the brawls took place in their upper middle class neighborhoods. A town hall meeting resulted out of the stories and the Arlington mayor held a forum to come up with productive things teens can do with their time. The teen producer of the violent video was arrested and parents are no doubt keeping a closer eye on what their children are doing to entertain themselves. The local video of the mainly African-American teens fighting was disturbing, but it generated positive discussion in black churches and on a black radio station that stopped the music to stop the violence. The video and story ended up being played on CNN and ABC networks as well as prompting an USA Today article about the trend of teens fighting for video fame as a sad commentary of what our kids are doing these days.