Hey - I Know Him!

You know the back of college alumni magazines? The part where they list all the accomplishments of graduates? It always seems like other people are doing great and exciting things - wonderful jobs, exciting travels, beautiful families. I was listed once, when I first started here at WBT. It was pretty cool to flip open Syracuse University Magazine, turn to alumni notes and see my name. But then my eyes drifted to the name just below mine in the class of '93. Eric Stangel. Don't know him? He and his brother are the head writers for Late Show with David Letterman. They had just won an Emmy award. So much for me. I got that same feeling this week, looking up at the TV screens that line our studio wall. On the CBS Early Show - there's consumer reporter Susan Koeppen. Hey, I worked with her in Utica, NY at WKTV! Not ten minutes later - there's newly named CBS national correspondent Jeff Glor. I worked with him at WSTM in Syracuse! We sat next to each other and anchored the morning news together for three years. It got me thinking about some other I-knew-them-whens. Jim Axelrod is CBS's Chief White House correspondent. I interned with him while I was a student at SU and he was a television reporter in town. He also started his career at the same station I did, WUTR in Utica, NY. I worked in Syracuse at the same time as David Muir, newly named anchor of ABC World News Saturday and Primetime, as well as Chris Lawrence, CNN correspondent. My point? I don't know. I'm very happy with the way things turned out. I've got an amazing job I absolutely love and hope to do forever. I've got a great family and my schedule allows me to juggle home and work in a pretty cool way for a full-time working mom. There's still that little pull, though, when you think about what might have been. If I'd taken the television anchor jobs I was offered rather than coming to Charlotte as a reporter. If I'd stayed in television instead of switching to radio. The nice part is that all the folks I mentioned are hard workers and great people who've really earned their success. Yeah, I'm definitely jealous. Oh well. I guess on my next visit to New York I can always go stand outside the CBS Early Show studios with a big sign, "Hey, I know you!"