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| Karole Honas |
Along with the EMMY Awards, the chapter provides the region's professionals with seminars, programs, and networking, also serving communities by offering scholarships.
As a co-anchor on Idaho Falls’ Local News 8 for decades, Honas has become a fixture in homes throughout the region. She is one of eight people to share the Silver Circle honor this year.
Here are the words she wrote for the Academy’s web page:
When I was elected Governor of Girls State my senior year of high school, a reporter asked me what I intended to major in when I got to college. I told her I had no idea, and she decided that didn't sound very mature, so she suggested I say “communications.” The rest is history.
I graduated from the University of Idaho in 1977. I married my college boyfriend, Ken, on July 2 and began working for a new station in eastern Idaho two weeks later. I spent seven years at KPVI Ch 6 in Pocatello. When I started, we were on 16 mm film. The film processor was located in an old barn south of town, so every day at 3 pm we raced to the barn to drop the film off, raced back to the office to write our story and cut the audio on cassettes, back to the barn to pick up the film and back to the office to edit. I still take pride in the fact I could change a film magazine in a black bag while driving the news car.
God blessed us with three boys in the 1980's and I spent that decade learning to be a mother. In 1990 I got a call from my now long-time anchor partner Jay Hildebrandt. He said they were desperate for a fill-in female anchor. His co-anchor went into labor early and had a baby. Would I fill in for a couple months? I did, and never left. Jay and I have shared the anchor set for 25 years at KIFI Local News 8.
Because we are a small market station, our employees are usually graduates just out of school. In the beginning, they were my age, my peers. Then I got a little older and became more of a trainer. Then I got older and became a coach. One day a new rookie came in with her parents to start her first job, and I realized the “parent” was younger than me!
That's when I became a “mom” in the newsroom.
My “kids” have graduated to big markets all over the United States: Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Atlanta, Portland and Seattle. They are such fine journalists, and I take great pride in the fact I may have started them off on the right foot.
