Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/908245
20 F A L L 2 0 1 7 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y had built these stages. And it was going to be the third coast and all this stuff was going on. So, of course, I called everybody I knew—which was not many people —when I moved to Dallas. And one of the people was Darrell Barton, a cameraman. And out of the blue one morning, he called me and said, "Get to the airport as fast as you can." In Mexico City, there had been a big earthquake. "Don't pack. Don't do anything. Just get to the airport." So me being a dumb kid, I did exactly that. He said, "We're just going to fly down, get there, and then we're going to come fly back with the tape." The tape! This is how long ago. "We'll throw the tape over the fence if we have to." So we did. Got on a little Learjet and flew to Acapulco where our pilots knew some air traffic control guys that they could bribe to let us into the Mexican airspace. Got to Mexico City—and I was working with Dan Rather! I was a network news sound technician. And that was that. Was that the first time you considered yourself with that title officially? That was the first time on that level. Darrell and I worked together for a couple of years after that. He'd won 'National Press Photographer of the Year' twice. He was very, very good. We were connected then. We were tied together with cable. And I was carrying a deck when we first started. Three-quarter inch. And I was a pack mule more than anything. But I was one of maybe five or six women in the country doing it. At that time, there were very, very few of us because it was very physically demanding. So, because he was who he was, I was very lucky and got to work on some of the best stuff. We traveled around the world. I'll never forget some of the times with Darrell. He was the kind of guy—he was a Marine in Vietnam—and he always had this cigarette hanging off his lip. You'd be walking through a field and there'd be a giant puddle of mud and if you walked five feet, you could step around the mud. JUST FIVE FEET! No, no! Was network news sound the main focus then or were you still pursuing other ventures? Well, when I first moved to Dallas, the photography thing was still going. I was working for a music magazine that's sort of like LA Weekly. And I did concert photography. It was great. It was Madonna's first tour and, I mean, I'll never forget this—that's the tour where the Beastie Boys opened for her and they got booed off the stage. Oh, that's funny! Seems outrageous from my perspective, growing up being such a fan of theirs. In Dallas, nobody knew who they were. They were probably thinking: "Who are these clowns?" Yeah, exactly! But [photography] was something that was still there. I was still sort of doing it. But then this [sound] thing took off and then I was in the union. I was in two unions: IBEW and NABET. And, I'm a union sound technician. So it's hard to step away from that. I was a kid making bank. I was traveling all over and I think I've been in every state but Alaska at this point. I still have my old field mixer, this mixer I still use! I still have one that I went to Africa with. It went all kinds of places with me. I did that for so long. I did that for over 12 years. I kind of reached the peak of what I could do in that world. I have an Emmy and all kinds of things from doing that. And I met Simone. I met my partner of 22 years. Shawn working hard at the top of the Hotel Artemis which looks a lot like the top of the Rosslyn. Photo: Matt Kennedy