Covering Rural Nevada Alone part 3

            December 1983. Just two years after I went to work as a radio announcer and account executive at KSRN, it certainly appeared that my career in media was about to come to an end. We were dead broke, had to sell our house at a considerable loss, and for a while we actually didn’t know if we would have enough money for groceries. It was that tough.

            Just as that door was about to close at KSRN, another one opened in the form of a television station on Energy Way in Reno. Ed Pearce was the news director at KTVN, and was interested in me as an intern. Apparently he and Howard Rosenberg saw me do a television PSA (Public Service Announcement) for veteran affairs, and thought I might make good as a television reporter.

            Ed hired me fulltime in February, 1984. That began my career in television news. I started off working week-ends learning the ropes from veterans like Michael Haggerty Chris Healy, Joe Bickett, and of course, my mentor, Kirk Frosdick, Channel 2’s assignment editor at the time.

            There was a lot to learn, but somehow I muddled through it, and was actually doing a pretty good job in my limited experience. Most of all, I loved the work. It was challenging, and rewarding.

            It wasn’t long before I was asked to do a week-day program called “Live at 5.” Not bad for a rookie who just a few short months ago was fighting to survive.

If I thought reporting was challenging, being an anchor was even more so. The different camera angles, reading from a prompter, interviewing live guests, preparing scripts for each segment, working with a studio crew plus a director and producer, staying on time,  not to mention trying to sound like a professional, when in fact, I had no idea what I was doing.

Then in June, the new owners took over the station and everything, and I mean everything changed.

Next, the rise and fall of a television star