Annette Hover Weston had wanted to be a journalist since she was 11. She remains one today, though made her way through print and news broadcasting coast to coast to reach her specialized perch — talk radio.

Her future destination was prophesied in high school in Van Buren County, where she graduated with Lawrence’s Class of 1987.

As the introduction to her Facebook page notes, “I talk for a living. Literally all of my high school teachers would have said I’d end up here” on public radio in North Carolina.

“After my mom died of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) last year,” Weston said, “we were poking through old photos and mementos. The one commonality in every old report card was, ‘Talks too much in class.’

“I really wanted to be a journalist. The first time I recall thinking that would be me when I grew up, I was watching the Carter-Reagan election returns on television – so I would have been 11.

“To bring things full circle, I had the immense pleasure of interviewing Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter when they were working at the Jimmy Carter Work Project for Habitat for Humanity in 2005. That project came to pass as the City of Benton Harbor worked to recover from the riot in 2003.”

Both her parents, Janice and Gordon Hover, attended SMC and “actually got close and fell in love carpooling to and from Lawrence and Dowagiac.”

Weston has two younger siblings, a brother who is a veteran and an engineer for the federal government. Her sister owns a restaurant in Schoolcraft, Bud’s Bar.

“Amazing food and atmosphere,” she said. “They brought a shuttered local legend back to life.”

Weston, who has four adult children and two grandchildren, didn’t consider other options besides SMC.

“I was working 2 ½ jobs to pay for my classes — the half was freelance reporting for the Courier-Leader newspaper in Paw Paw. (SMC) was closer to home and work than any other.”

She did not commute, but rented a tiny studio apartment in Dowagiac, which she shared with a roommate and her toilet-trained cat.

“I absolutely can’t remember exactly where the apartment was, but it was next to a small gas station that was in pretty rough shape even then. My roommate and I shared a pull-out couch bed.”

Her first fulltime news job was features editor for the Southeast Georgian, a weekly newspaper in St. Mary’s, Ga. After a year or so she was introduced to radio, WKBX FM, in neighboring Kingsland, Ga., as a deejay in music radio (adult contemporary).

Weston took nearly 10 years off from fulltime work after she had children, though in 1991 she covered high school sports as a freelancer in Beaufort, S.C. The publisher of the Lowcountry Ledger was Bill Rausch, former press secretary for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“I had done freelance writing and weekend on-air work for the Kalamazoo Gazette, the Herald Palladium in Benton Harbor-St. Joseph and COSY (98.3 at the time) in South Haven for a few years while my children were little. Daycare isn’t an option on a radio salary,” she said.

Eventually a reporter job opened at another Midwest Broadcasting station, WSJM in Benton Harbor.

“I moved into that role a few weeks after 9/11,” she said. “My youngest kiddo had just entered kindergarten and that historic event convinced me that I needed to re-enter the news world. Just over a year later I was promoted to News Director. During the 2008 recession the position was eliminated, so I figured why not check out Central Oregon?”

She covered the building

of SMC’s first residence hall

Weston helped launch a brand-new news station in Bend, Ore., as program director.

“Family concerns brought me back to Michigan about a year later, and I was an agribusiness reporter in Lansing for the Michigan Farm Radio Network for two years before jumping at the chance to help build another new station from the ground up, Michiana News Channel in South Bend.”

She remembers covering the story of SMC building its first residence hall, Keith H. McKenzie Hall, named for the longtime Board of Trustees vice chairman, in 2009.

“Casey Hendrickson, myself in the news booth and the legendary sports god Craig Williams made up the MNC (95.3) morning crew for a time.”

Radio “has sent me to a variety of places,” she said. “Central Oregon was the longest distance, and it is absolutely beautiful. I was news director for a heritage (three-letter call sign, WMT) station in Cedar Rapids/Iowa City; morning anchor/reporter for a statewide radio news bureau in Minneapolis; and for a locally-owned cluster in Mankato, Minn., KTOE.”

Oregon, Minnesota

and now North Carolina

Of her time in the Minnesota River Valley, which made national news last summer for flooding, Weston said, “KTOE was a stellar organization. So much so that I left a much larger market to work there. It was still locally owned, and John Linder was passionate about local news. He died in 2017 and the passion wilted like a flower on the vine. I was there for three years, from 2016-2019, and after the combination of the new management structure and the birth of my first grandchild, it was clear I need to follow my own personal and professional passion, and that led me to North Carolina.”

Her personal bests in Minnesota winters were weathering -27 degrees and -68 windchill.

She met Gus, Hope and Gwen Walz a few times while covering Tim’s campaign for governor of Minnesota. “Just a lovely family,” she said during his vice presidential nomination during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “I would definitely see Tim as America's dad.”

She worked for three years as the digital content manager for a local TV station.

“There are some real horror stories involved with moderating social media comments for a news organization amid the politics and pandemic that were present between 2019-2022,” she said.

Weston began her current position as news director of the local National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate Public Radio East (WTEB) not quite two years ago.

“My grandchildren are the light in my days; moving south to watch them grow and learn was one of the best decisions I’ve made. Grayson is 5 and Scarlett is 2.”

Hurricanes like coastal North Carolina

Weston arrived in eastern North Carolina about six months after Hurricane Florence, which “was devastating to the region. Some may remember the videos of people rescued from the roofs of their homes by emergency responders in New Bern.”

“Since I’ve been here there have been two that left behind a lot of damage — Dorian in 2019 and Isaias in 2020. One thing to understand about hurricanes in this region is they are often preceded by rounds of tornados and waterspouts, which can cause as much or more damage and loss of life as the hurricane itself.”

Maysville, where she lives, “is a very small town still working to claw its way back from the devastation of Hurricane Florence. However, I live rural and Jacksonville, N.C., is nearly as close to my home. It’s the home of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. You’ve probably been bombarded by the toxic water lawsuit commercials. This is a very military-focused area, with Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point also nearby. I work in New Bern, the birthplace of Pepsi” at a drugstore in 1893.

Public Radio East, located on the Craven Community College campus, is a local NPR affiliate station. Morning Edition is one of NPR’s flagship programs, with nationwide news and features throughout the morning. She anchors local news during this programming, at the top and bottom of the hour.

“We have a very small team — three in the news department and four on the administrative/fundraising side. I typically interview/gather/write about 90 percent of our content, from local short pieces within the newscasts to 10-minute feature programs.

“My alarm goes off at 3 a.m. weekdays. On one hand, I’ve been getting up that early or earlier since 2001, so it’s almost my normal. On the other, getting up at 3 a.m. does kind of stink,” Weston said.

We make the news more informative

“I really enjoy public radio. In the past, I have only worked for commercial radio stations,” Weston said. “I think what we are able to do in terms of coverage is both more informative and entertaining than people would hear on the news otherwise. We focus on things that impact people more directly, and less on car crashes, police chases and the like.

“Just in the last few weeks, the declaration that gun violence is a public health crisis and following up with a shark expert after a teen was bitten swimming at a local beach, as well as the possibility of 18-foot-long sharks ending up in North Carolina and tagging along when an injured but rehabilitated sea turtle was released back to the ocean.”

Her report on galeophobia — the official name for fear of sharks — pointed out that there have been but 10 fatal encounters along the coastline since 1864. Between 2013 and 2022, North Carolina recorded 31 total shark bites — “far fewer than other states like Florida and Hawaii.”

 “This career allows me to not only be a lifelong learner,” Weston said, “but also to have the opportunity to be a teacher of sorts when I pass information along to others.”

One regret Weston has about SMC is that she did not try out for the track team.

“I ran hurdles in high school and loved it, but I had to work to pay for school, so it wasn’t an option.”