Even though I moved and lived in several states after graduating from Caldwell County High School, Farmersville, Kentucky is, and has always been home to me. I’m a proud former Caldwell Co Lady Tiger Basketball Player, Caldwell Co Class of 1993 Alum, and have been sports-obsessed since I was a kid. I grew up playing basketball and softball. I practiced on a handmade goal my sweet Daddy made for me, just outside the apple orchard on the dirt patch, where my best friend was a yellow lab named George.
The only thing I loved more than sports, was farm life. From horses and cows to rabbits and chickens, we drove my Mama crazy as she put it “draggin’ everything that breathed home” lol. The orchard was the drive-thru window, the field corn cut by hand with an old tobacco knife, and the hay cut with an old cycle mower. If we didn’t grow, hunt, forage or raise it, we didn’t eat it. My parents made sure I had respect and love for where I come from, and that God was always number one. Looking back it probably has something to do with why I have made most of my career totally immersed in Country Music.
I got started in radio as a teenager, at the original WPKY block building, off Dawson Road in Princeton. I’ll never forget walking to work in one of the biggest snows back then because I refused to miss a shift. It was spinning records and splicing tape on reel to reels back then. I found out pretty quick, radio would become the love of my life.
After a few years of wishing I was Todd Griffin, since he never seemed to miss a lick, I moved to WYNG (Wing 105) in Evansville, Ind. Our company also owned 103 GBF, and I was lucky and eager to moonlight across the hall. Over the years there, I ended up doing every shift. My Program Dir, Jimmy Lehn, would let me jump in and do pretty much anything. At one point, we flipped cars upside down in the median in the middle of the night, 10 of them, up and down Highway 41, and after winning a CMA award for it, this Farmersville Hillbilly was officially hooked. I slept on top of Walmart during a snowstorm, swung from billboards, jumped in the rodeo barrel, drag raced at Chandler Raceway, led a convoy of donations to tornado victims in Oklahoma, and even drove in a demo derby or two.
Eventually, I ended up on the Morning Show at WYNG with area legend Sam Yates. Not a month later, I found myself doubling down as Promotions Dir and Music Dir, and before I knew it, eventually took on the Program Dir gig and got the spot I’d set my sights on.
Eventually, after moving to Nashville and then Atlanta, I received a really great offer and moved to Southern Illinois to be half of the “Wes and Tess in the Morning” show at WDDD(W3D). I’d met my match it seemed. Every crazy idea just seemed to make sense. From duct-taping interns to telephone poles on Hwy 13, to playing Survivor in the median, we had a lot of fun. I was single in those days, until one day, a few days after one of the most terrifying days I ever spent on the air, 9/11, I interviewed a Marine. I wasn’t supposed to be there that day but Wes called in sick, and my Marine wasn’t supposed to be there either and was filling in for his buddy. God had a plan. That Gunny in his dress blues walked in, and 19 years later is still putting up with my antics.
Soon after becoming a wife, I found myself about to be a Mom. My parents truly thought they would never be grandparents because radio had always been my baby, but I wasn’t ready for just how much I would love being a Mom, and since one just wasn’t enough, my only child became the big sister to twin brothers. After another move, this time to Texas, my Gunny retired from the Marine Corps, and I was half of the “Chip and Patty Morning Show” on “The BULL”. I actually loved living in Texas. Eventually, though, I figured out with 3 kids there was no way I could put the love and energy into my career I always had, and I had a new love and obsession as a Mama. I pushed pause, hung my mic up for a bit, and stayed home raising kids and giving it the best Martha Stewart try I could muster.
Shortly after, I longed for home and was determined to raise my kids in the community I had been blessed to grow up in, and we bought a farm a mile from where I was raised. I spent the next decade raising cattle, donkeys, horses, and kids. Gardening with my Daddy and selling veggies, custom woodworking, cutting firewood, and being a Mom. As it always does, time flew by and I woke up with teenagers. I found myself with time. Todd Griffin had the answer. Yet again, after all these years and wrinkles later, I found myself back where it all started, with the guy who trained me. I don’t know if it was fate or a push from the Big Guy, but here I am, hopefully, eventually, finishing my career in the same place it all began for me. I feel like I am where I was meant to be.
These days, I spend most of my days going to games, on adventures with my best friend Heather, bowling on Team RBA (Redneck Bowling Assoc, and yes, that’s really our team name lol), and golfing every chance I get. I continue to be obsessed with all things KIDS and Community. One of my favorite places in the world is the football stadium watching my son in his jersey on the field, my daughter playing drums in the Band of Pride, and my sweet Eli helping me root them on. I love BIG, work hard and play like it’s my job. I am extremely competitive, a little ditsy, and would still rather wear my cowboy boots than anything else.
I live on coffee and Mt Dew, and yes, my bestie says I shouldn’t. My Daddy says “I’m stubborn as a mule”, and my favorite quote, “Ya burnin’ Daylight”, is from him as well. I have zero patience and the attention span of a gnat most days. I have no idea how this crazy, full life got me where I am. I think I learned to do most things by doing the wrong thing first and adjusting, but I know for certain, I feel so appreciative God saw fit to somehow make all the twists and turns bring me home.