V: And we’re rolling! How crazy has everything been since your announcement?

PM: It’s been overwhelming. People are responding to the news with emails, social media, and phone calls and I really want to thank everyone appropriately. It’s been amazing, and it’s made me very sentimental about my career and my life here in the Bay Area. I feel really grateful.

V: I remember when we came here (KRON) within a year of each other. When you walked into KRON, 1001 Van Ness Avenue, what did you think?

PM: I’m working in the San Francisco Bay Area, that was fabulous for me. I felt at home here so quickly. I felt a part of the community quickly. I had worked in several news markets, so it was a big deal to come to this market and feel so at home.

V: If someone tapped you on the shoulder and said, “Pam, you’re gonna be here for 32 years”, what would you have said?

PM: I feel lucky. How many of us can stay in a great market, in this great job, for this long? Ha. I feel very fortunate.

V: What is the secret to your success?

PM: I don’t know. I’m a survivor. I think a lot of the things we do in the community make a big difference to people. You certainly hope it does, anyway. You participate in events, you try to tell stories that mean something to people, or you try to do something that’s fun and interesting.

Whatever you’re doing you hope that somehow, you’re contributing to make things better. You’re (Vern) on the Sports side so you can have a lot more fun than we newsies can have on the air. Sometimes it’s difficult telling these stories on the news side, but when you can feel a part of a community, then it means something to you too. You’re not just repeating things that don’t affect you, they affect me just like they affect everybody else in the community. I hope that comes through that I am a part of this community and I care.

V: What clicked in your mind that just told you, you know what? Now’s the time.

PM: Well, I have been around a long time, ha ha. I worked nights for 32 years. When you work nights and you come in at three, you can’t come in cold. You have to be aware of the news all day long. So your day may start at three at the office, but you have to be aware of what’s happening all day. You don’t get off till 11 or 11:30 at night and then you come back and it’s the same thing. I get to the weekend and I’m exhausted. Anyway, I wanted time to have more fun and find out what it is like for my time to be my own. More time to be spontaneous, time to travel, to relax, whatever. And after I get over the initial change, I look forward to still doing something where I can contribute. There are so many issues that I care about. I hope to find some place to land that suits me, but more on my terms. It will be nice to find out what ii is like to live your life on your own terms. When you work any job for anybody, you’ve got to clock in, you have responsibilities. I’m looking forward to not having so many responsibilities, where my time is my time.

V: Where do you get the energy to be able to deliver it every night?

PM: Same place you get it. We care about our work. You want to do it well. I’ve grown up a lot here, I’ve made my mistakes, I’ve not always been the very best, but I’ve managed to survive a lot of changes, as you know. All the media companies have changed a great deal from when we both started many years ago in the Bay Area. But we’ve survived it and we’ve certainly grown from it. I just feel really blessed and really honored.

V: Look at this Pam, we’ve gone almost 6 minutes. Last one from me, and I don’t want to start any “water works”, but I will ask you this, what do you think you might miss the most?

PM: Well, it would have to be my co-workers, the interaction that you have every day. Everybody has to work, but when you can go to work with people that you really enjoy, people that you feel are your genuine friends, you care about them and they care about you. You can’t get much better than that in terms of a job. In addition to that, we have an incredible opportunity working in this position. We’re meeting people all over the community, interviewing people who are in positions of authority, telling stories about other people’s lives, things that I would never maybe ever experience in my own life, and so it’s a real privilege to be allowed to do these jobs. And even with the ups and downs, this has just been an amazing experience and I’m going to miss all of that. But I’m still going to tell some stories. I’ll still do some profile reports. The station has been very supportive of that. I will still do some community work. I took the kids today from EOYDC to Marcus Books, and I’ve been doing that for more than a decade.

There’s just so much more joy in life which I hope to discover and explore and I want to do a lot of it with the people I’ve met along the way through this job