#MediaMonday- Margo Papke
Today’s #MediaMonday comes from one of our favorite gals Margo Papke. This media lover got her start producing news at ABC15 and now she’s the producer at Sonoran Living.
I got to work with this lovely lady for the first time recently and learned that our love for media isn’t the only thing we have in common. We also both love sports and guilty pleasure shows (The Real Housewives is definitely my favorite).
That’s not all I learned about this media queen! But enough from me, I will let her share!
So take it away Margo!
What do you want to tell the blogosphere about yourself today?
My first job was at a roller rink in El Paso,TX. If the smell of feet and cotton candy isn’t enough to motivate you to get a college degree, then I don’t know what is!
I’m a very proud Army ‘brat’ with three sisters and two brothers. One of my brothers and I were born in Germany, and then moved around a lot until I was in middle school. My dad ended up retiring in El Paso where I graduated from Eastwood High School (go Troop!) and from UTEP (go Miners!).
I am from a family of athletes. We all played soccer at one time, but my sister and I were the only ones who stuck with it throughout high school. I also played volleyball and later coached it at the high school level. Needless to say, I really thought I’d end up in the sports world, or doing physical therapy… but then I met some friends from the communication department at UTEP!
Those friends thought it would be fun to write a comedy show and recruited me to help – since I’ve always been totally obsessed with sitcoms and other comedy sketch shows like SNL. The comedy show never really panned out but I sure did discover my love for media!
So, I changed my major (from pre-med, yikes!) to communication. I worked for KTEP, the NPR affiliate in El Paso where I was a producer and writer for a show called “Salud Sin Fronteras – Health Without Borders.” This show pretty much changed my life. We were telling stories of people who barely had a make shift house, much less access to health care.
From there I made the move to entertainment radio where I produced commercials and did some on-air work. Then I thought it’d be fun to intern at a TV news station, to see if I wasn’t missing out on anything. Boy was I ever! I discovered that I absolutely loved news. When I graduated from college, I still worked for Clear Channel Radio, but I also took a job as an editor for the morning show at KVIA, since it was my only “in”. After a year of editing, I moved to producing – and I never looked back.
From El Paso, my boyfriend and I moved to Washington State. He was a weather and news anchor for a morning show, and I produced the 5pm and 6pm news. We lived in an area known as the Tri-Cities – which is also in wine country. So of course, I had to get job at a winery (when inRome, right?)! It was there that I discovered a passion for not only wine, but also customer service!
From Washington, I took a news producing job here at ABC15. Then the opportunity to produce Sonoran Living Live came up – and I jumped at it! The beautiful thing about this job is that I truly do get to combine my love of telling people’s stories and my passion for customer service – and I could not be happier.
When I’m not at work, you can most likely find me watching my guilty pleasure shows, like any of the “Real Housewives” franchises on Bravo, and Project Runway and the list goes on!
The advice I give to my eight nieces and nephews is that you have to push yourself out of your boundaries and just try it! I did, and I couldn’t be happier.
