The Queen of KOWZ
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By Autumn Van Ravenhorst AVanRavenhorst@owatonna.com
t can be tough being twenty-something and not quite sure what you are destined to be doing. Throw a child in the mix and already a couple failed attempts at a passionate route in life and voila—you have radio personality extraordinaire Molly Penny. And me. And most people trying to figure their life out. Molly is relatable. She is friendly. You can hear it in her voice that streams the many airwaves, specifically KOWZ/KRUE radio located right here in southern Minnesota. Molly grew up in Vienna, Virginia—a suburb of Washington, D.C. and did some moving around as a child of a father who was in the political arena. Eventually ending up in Minnesota, Molly graduated from Waseca High School in 2000. She left her small town and set off to St. Paul to attend a private art college, later switching her course to St. Paul Technical College where she studied about a year of American Sign Language. She eventually left and after the birth of her daughter moved back to Waseca. So, she did what anyone would have done—participated in a life planning workshop (duh).
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“You took a quiz to find out what you should be, and mine was a librarian or elementary school teacher,” said Molly. “I am the loudest person I know, so there is no way I should be in a library setting. Then I thought, I could be a great teacher. For me, teachers have been some of the most influential people in my life.” And so it goes, Molly started school in Mankato to become a social studies teacher. As she was finishing up, she wound up in Owatonna and tried to get a job with the school district. “I was actually hired on, but then later found out it wasn’t going to be available so I was stuck,” she said. “I was a single mom with now two kids so at that point I was just looking for something to make ends meet. I started at Papa Murphy’s working for minimum wage. It was a humbling experience, but I would actually sort of pray and meditate while doing the dishes, telling myself I had talents beyond what I was doing there. We could only get one radio station at the pizza place and that was KOWZ 100.9. Then one day, I had turned the dish water off just in time to hear an ad for females who were interested in working with the morning show and had experience with pop culture, current events and stuff like that. I submitted my resume. I tweaked it to showcase my personality so I would get noticed. Witty, charming, fast-thinker. I wrote the whole thing in a comical way to get their attention and it did.” She applied for a position she was told received approximately 100 applications. Out of those 100, 20 were interviewed. And from that pool of 20 candidates, it was narrowed down to the final three who were to audition live on the air, and one of
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