02/04/2025
Happy Anniversary to me! 21 years as a Full Time Voice Over. 🎧🥂🎤
Twenty-one years ago today, after my on-air shift as the co-host and news anchor of “Mike and Moe in the Morning”, I was called into the General Manager’s office to be let go. They ‘were going in a different direction’ and I didn’t get a map. I thought it was the worst day ever.
After my walk of shame with a cardboard box of mementos, and a Rolodex of contacts that meant nothing any longer, I thought about my future. I thought, “It can’t go down from here. Maybe NOW is the time to try this voiceover thing for real.” I promised myself I would give it three years to make a living wage before getting a teaching certificate my dad always pushed me toward (he never got ‘creatives’.)
I had done voice overs here and there since 1985, when the production manager at my first radio station found out I was a theater major. It never occurred to me that ‘voice-over’ could be a real job.
In 2004, I borrowed money from my big brother to get equipment, and I took every part time job offered to make ends meet. I showed up at the Assembly of God food pantry on Saturday mornings to supplement my groceries. I was making a living wage within 2 years. I paid my brother back. At five years in, I wrote a $1,000 check for the food bank in celebration of my anniversary. I also got divorced. I was now a single mom working as a freelance voice over with 3 kids and a mortgage.
I’ve raised three kids, paid off my mortgage and put two kids through college on my own as a creative. I have worked with clients on six continents…I’m still waiting on that big Antarctic break. I have won a Reed Award and an Earphones Award. I have worked with start-ups, major municipalities & universities and Fortune 100 Companies. Clients have become friends, and voice over colleagues have become family.
Today, I went to the library with my 11-month-old twin grandsons for story time. One of the books read was “A Good Day” by Kevin Henkes. A series of seemingly awful things happen to several animals, but in the end, it turns out for all of them it was actually a very good day.
As I think about that woman 21 years ago, sitting in that Ford Es**rt in the WGIR parking lot on the verge of tears (I had never been fired before). I wish I could go back in time and let her know that seemingly awful day, April 2nd , opened the door for an amazing career, working with creative people around the globe; the ability to seamlessly blend my mom world with my voiceover world, to create this crazy cool life on my terms, with the help of a lot of people who believed in me along the way and cheered me along the way. April 2nd turned out to be a very, very good day.
