Fun Facts

I once travelled in a coach from Valencia, Spain to Calais, France with a retired British showgirl who regaled me with stories of her glamorous life. At the end of the trip she asked me to carry two bottles of hooch through customs for her. Once a showgirl, always a showgirl.

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I became a writer in junior high while walking beans with my dad and sister. We spent day after day in the summer walking up and down rows of soy beans cutting down weeds with corn hooks and machetes. They say walking is good for writers, and it’s true. All that time just walking and walking looking for weeds and being in nature. It gave me the meditative mind to dream up plots for scripts and plays. Come afternoon and the hotter temperatures, we’d go home and my sister and I would work on the stories together.

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I was a big Peter Max fan when I was in high school. I cut out panels of his work that were featured every week in the Sunday funnies. I bought a pair of hotpants from his clothing line. In more recent times, I was standing outside my employer’s building waiting for my husband to collect me after work. Lo and behold, Peter Max parked across the street and moved some paintings from his car’s backseat to its trunk. I know it was Peter Max because he was going to be a guest on Almanac (one of my employer’s shows) that night. He walked into the building. I was tongue-tied and missed my chance to tell him I owned his hotpants.

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One of the TV shows I did show design for that won a Peabody was NewsNight MN. Oprah devoted an episode of her daytime program to it because of its earnest mission to serve the community and avoid sensationalism. One of the items I designed was a weather map that an electronic graphics person could easily update every day with icons from a font I created especially for it. I tried so hard to be original. As time went by I would look at the map and shudder. I’ve never been on an acid trip, let alone a bad one; but, if you asked me to describe this map, that is what I’d say it looks like. During Oprah’s show, the one piece of video they showed that included my design work was the weather map! It remains both one of my proudest and one of my most cringe-worthy television moments.

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I grew up in a town of 300 people. My mom was a Registered Nurse. She once delivered a baby in someone’s kitchen.

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The other show I worked on that won a Peabody is Liberty! The American Revolution. It includes actors portraying people of the era reading letters they’ve written. One of them is a young Philip Seymour Hoffman. The producers/director of this program have a stellar filmography. One of the documentaries they worked on is Grey Gardens. There is nothing cringe-worthy about Liberty! Guess what design work I did for it. Maps! You can visit the Liberty! website here: https://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/

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I have Nelson Rockefeller’s autograph on a hat made from a folded-up newspaper. He was the guest of honor in a Worthington, Minnesota Turkey Day Parade. I folded the newspaper into a hat because I thought he’d be more likely to sign it that way. As if a politician wasn’t going to sign an autograph for a child during a parade!

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I did animations for at least two shows that won Emmys. SciGirls and Newton’s Apple. Here are their links: https://pbskids.org/scigirls/ https://www.pbs.org/show/newtons-apple/

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I lived in London for a year as part of my college education. This allowed many wonderful travel opportunities. During one of my excursions, I went for a hike along the seaside cliffs of St. Ives in Cornwall. My aim was to hike to the next town and secure lodging there. I misjudged how long it would take me to reach my destination and ended up tucking myself underneath a large shrubbery and boulder overhang and sleeping there. I did not die of hypothermia. Education. Hurrah!

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I won a Broadcast Design Award for creating the animated open to this show. It still makes me happy. https://www.pbs.org/show/funny-show-about-weather/

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I held hands with Bob Eubanks, the original host of The Newlywed Game, (and several other game shows) because a company was shooting a game show pilot at my employer’s studios. They were testing out lighting and audio and cameras with Mr. Eubanks. They needed someone to pretend to be a contestant. I was nervous. It was a bit of improv for me and I’m not good at that. I need to ponder things. That’s probably why I’m a writer and not an actor or comedian. Mr. Eubanks took hold of my hand, and you know what? I became calm.