DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL!
Your favorite TV meteorologist hails from Lawrence Writer / Neal G. Moore . Photographer / Brenda Staples
Maybe it was the stick-on weather map Pamela Gardner’s mom gave her when she was in middle school. Perhaps it was because as a kid growing up in Lawrence Township, Pam was terrified of storms. Or, maybe Mother Nature and Old Man Winter conspired to make it happen. Whatever the reason, Gardner said that she knew early on something involving the weather was in her long-range forecast. “I didn’t understand storms – and I wanted to,” said Gardner, a Forecast 8 Meteorologist with WISH-TV in Indianapolis. “So, I checked out library books and studied tornadoes on my own. I would write out mock forecasts, and I tried to train myself on maps. It was fascinating, and I was obsessed.” That weather obsession led Pam to Ball State University where she majored in telecommunications, with a meteorology minor. It was mom who suggested Pam should do the weather on TV and, just like that, a career was born. “She’s my biggest supporter, and I trust her. Who better to trust than your mom?” Pam smiled. She subsequently earned a broadcast meteorology certificate from Mississippi State University. But hold on. We’ve gotten ahead of ourselves with this story. Before Ball State and the TV weather career, there was Cat’s Eye. “Oh, wow! you were big-league [doing that],” Gardner said, fondly remembering broadcasting high school announcements as the Cat’s Eye anchor on Lawrence North’s campus TV system. “My senior year I needed an elective, and when I got ahold of a camera – and then in front of one – I loved it,” said Gardner, emphasizing that communications teacher Theresa Mowack was very encouraging. “It was the first time I got a taste of TV. She would say, ‘Try this, try that.’”
Two days before graduating Ball State, Gardner was hired by WTHI in Terre Haute as a weathercaster. There were some “growing pains” along the way. “I replaced a guy who was there for several years, so when I came along I got a lot of rude viewer comments,” Pam recalled. “But, once I had proven myself, people completely turned around and supported me. I still get Terre Haute emails saying, ‘We miss you’ from supportive women. Most of the negative comments had been from women – and it’s a shame. Now, women are saying, ‘Hey – girl power! That’s great, you’re a scientist on TV’, and that’s what I want to be consider as, because that’s what I am – the station scientist.” It’s a sentiment shared by WISH News Director Steve Bray. “Pamela has the ability to take the science of meteorology and break it down into a casual conversation with the information viewers need to know,” he said. In 2011 Gardner joined WISH to anchor weekend weathercasts. On weekdays she produces computer weather graphics for fellow meteorologist Randy Ollis (also a Lawrence Township resident.) Then there’s the occasional weather story to be covered for newscasts, shooting video, or handling rush-hour traffic updates including reports from the news helicopter – a Jill of all trades, if you will. “Opportunities for women are exactly the same now – the playing field is even,” noted Gardner. “Gender has been largely removed and everyone has a fair chance [in TV]. It’s the education that matters.” Weather forecasting and reporting is serious business, as evidenced by last year’s November 17th tornado outbreak across north central Indiana.
atLawrence.com / APRIL 2014 / LAWRENCE COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER / 19
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