From a Broken Family, Foster Care, & Low Income, Housing…News, Anchor in LA, San Diego, and Denver

[Music] And welcome to Corner Cafe. I am Rachel Maynes and today I have my good friend Angie Austin on the show Welcome Angie. Hello there Rachel Maynes. Well we've known each other for many many years. We met in news and I think you know this was a God connection for sure. Absolutely I would agree with that. We met in TV news and you were my floor director and I was doing the morning show then whether I believe the weather woman and then we worked together now in radio. We worked together off and on for well over a decade. That's probably more like two. Yes during our time together in news you were you know a mentor to me. You have a lot of experience in media you helped me to better what I do on the floor and how I run it. How did you get started in media? That's a good question. Okay when I was in college I really thought about what I wanted to do and interestingly enough my husband just said to me that every day boy if I could do it again I would have done something different other than news because now for almost 15 years he's run his own business but he was a director in news. He started in Chicago and I said I would do it the same and he said no you wouldn't. I said yeah I would I had fun like it was fun. I still have fun and so I was at school at University of Colorado on Boulder. Third generation now my son is fourth generation he just started there and I thought you know what do I want to do and I was in mass communications economics and psychology like a typical emphasis degree and I really liked the communication side and my dad was also very involved in like speaking and announcing basketball games. He started the radio station at his university. He had a really great voice and I was kind of I went to a lot of theater with him and things where people were kind of using their ability to communicate to make a living and I thought it'd be fun. I thought it'd be good at it. I'm not bad at living and really the only thing I'm good at is like talking and maybe like I'm kind of funny and so I thought wow I'm hilarious and I can talk what can I do with that not a lot. So I did an internship at Channel 4 in Denver and then I got my first job. I moved to Los Angeles and I really wanted to work for one of the big stations there and I get my first job at NBC in LA and they paid $10 an hour and I ripped scripts but I was like wow some of those other jobs people are doing in the union. I could do those and they're making over like a hundred grand a year and this is like in the early 1990s. So I started working like filling in on the assignment desk and I was like an assistant to the assignment editor and they were the ones that were in the union that making really good money. They designed all of the cameramen and all of the reporters and the helicopter. They moved them all over a huge area of Southern California like Santa Barbara Riverside Orange County lost Angeles out in the valley like all over the place. It was a huge area we covered and so in those stations we fly the chopper around for big stories like wildfires and stuff like that and the riots. I was there during the riots. Okay so within six months I got a I did get a union job on the assignment desk and I started making six figures which was amazing to me because I had lived in low-income housing six months prior to that while I went to college in high school I worked full time seven days a week so this was quite a nice boost in my pay. So then I as time went on I wanted to do on-air work so every weekend I would go to Santa Barbara and I would do weather for 10 bucks an hour again and then I kept of course my good job up in LA for at least a decade doing the assignment desk and one of the cool stories I did that everybody always asks me about is O.J. Simpson they were looking for him the cops were not kept getting tips all day long like oh O.J. Simpson's in Orange County getting ice cream and I'm like okay sure oh hi I saw O.J. 7-11 and I'm like mm-hmm but then one of my great tips there who was never wrong. Raw call and he said there's a there's a the cops are following this white Bronco on the 405 and O.J.'s in the back of the Bronco and so I call my boss over I'm like this is legit this guy's never wrong he heard it on the scanners there's a pursuit on the 405 and O.J. Simpson's in a white Bronco can I launch the chopper because you always say they get permission because it was so expensive to fly right so we launched a chopper and we're the first station on the O.J. Simpson pursuit which ended up being like the biggest pursuit in the history of like TV news right then as time you know then other choppers got on it well then of course we ran out of gas first because we were the first chopper on the scene so you have to work out like these deals with the other helicopters and so you have to call the stations and be like hey Fox 11 is Angie over at NBC was wondering when we swap out signals can I use your chopper for five you know whenever five ten minutes while we refuel and then you can use mine while you refuel and we worked out all these deals so because you don't want to lose the signal because it's the biggest pursuit in like the history of TV news so that was kind of fun so that was a very stressful job you had a lot of like angry camera men like why did you send me here or the fire is out or I don't want to work with that reporter or this reporter would come up to me and he said if you ever assigned me to that camera man again I'll have your job like I didn't know who didn't want to work with who and it's hard to navigate Southern California with a map book we didn't have cell phones then you had to open up this giant book and then do grids and streets and go your location is on 5th stage 52 grid you know 8.7 but it would take me like 10 minutes to figure out where to send them but it was so complicated I can imagine that yeah and then you'll have like guides in the union that are mad that you send them to the wrong address so the fire was across the street once and one of my favorite guys jolly he got there and one of my other guys Larry that was really angry he was sitting in the launch here across the street and jolly said why aren't you getting video of the fire he goes well this is the address they sent me to so I'm just going to sit here in my launch here to see if she gave me the wrong address that's hilarious even though the fire was across the street so I started doing weather because I want to do something happier because news is very violent and sad and angry and upsetting when children are hurt especially so I thought weather and LA was very happy so I did weather instead of Barbara and I'd say within less than a year they hired me to do weekend weather in LA so when I do Monday through Friday and the assignment desk I'd get off at midnight and I'd have to be at like three or four in the morning the next morning to do the the weather and so I would sleep in the tonight show dressing rooms which it sounds real glamorous they were really old in the old building and like mice in there and like old couches like I think Pat say jack used to sleep on this one couch that's in this dressing room that I would try to sleep in but it just you know I couldn't sleep it was so security guards are walking by and the light came under the door and a mouse ran over me so I just get it was too far from me to drive back to I lived at the beach it was too far to drive so every Friday night I'd sleep for three hours on this couch and went to be in an earthquake and I had to get up in the middle of the night and do the earthquake coverage which was kind of nerve-wracking because that really was my area of expertise and you're on live and everybody in Southern California is tuning in and I'm the only one at the station and I'm like in my 20s trying to do earthquake coverage at a major station in Southern California so that was kind of nerve-wracking but so then after doing weather for a while then I got a morning show job in San Diego and I was the morning show host with a guy John Elliott he's now worked in New York City for many years he's very talented so we had a blast doing that morning show and then a time went on I moved back to Colorado where I grew up and I lived not far from University of Colorado Boulder where you went to school coincidentally as well yeah and I started working for Channel 2 in Denver where I met you and I did weather and then later on I did anchor the morning show for a while and then when I left knew I didn't renew my contract and like I had an offer at Channel 4 to work on their morning show but I wanted to do something with my faith and you can't do your faith in TV news and so I started the good news about 12 years ago here at your station and it's been on other Crawford stations as well but Colorado's Christian station has been the main KLTT station that I've been on and I've been doing this for 10 years now yeah wow time does fly doesn't it yes yeah whenever we kind of talk about oh we met and how long I'm like what and then when I see your kids of course you know kids are a great way to see how fast time flies because they grow up way way too quickly I know you were at my son's baptism you sang at his dedication and he just started college yeah that is the same you have no each other 20 years that is incredible one thing about you Angie is your work ethic and just hearing all these jobs that you did and the sacrifice how did you learn about work ethic was there anything in particular a memory where you're like you know what I'm just going to work really hard and I'm going to be successful do you have anything that you can recollect yeah I was so irritated that through no fault of my own I was growing up very poor in a bad environment and I lived in foster homes I lived in long-come housing I lived with my dad a little bit and then one day my stepmom didn't want us we drove us across country and left us on my grandma's like steps and so then I was with my mom for a while my parents you know my dad was in alcohol I could be very highly educated because his PhD ended up being a great guy later but we were estranged for like 35 years and so he drank he was abusive mostly to mostly to my mom and my brothers and then I had two brothers that had drug addiction problems one of them was murdered in Boulder many years ago and the other one has been homeless for the majority of his life and then my brother who didn't use drugs graduated in the top 1% of his class at West Point Military Academy one of the most prestigious universities in the country ranks right up there at Harvard and Princeton and you know the Naval Academy and I mean just really up there so he did extremely well and when I was younger I saw like wow the only person that's really doing well in my family is the one not drinking and doing drugs so I was never tempted to do either of those and I think that I was so like irritated that like I'm so smart why am I living in long-come housing I am so smart why am I like made fun of its school for being poor like there's nothing wrong with me I have everything working for me that I could get ahead in life I'm just starting like way behind the finish of the starting line like I'm not starting equal to everybody else I'm like way back there so I started working full time seven days a week all through high school in college didn't have any college debt put myself through school I actually graduated with I was saying yesterday to my father in law I had 12,000 which may not sound like much now but tuition was only 500 a semester then and so I saved up all that money I had no pal grants no loans no help no nothing which I probably I could have I just I guess no one enough to even apply for all that stuff I just worked and then when I got to to LA I also pretty much worked seven days a week I say I worked seven days a week until I was in my mid of 30s maybe and I don't work that much now which is kind of nice because I have all these teenagers and you know family and have good marriage and lots of time put into all of those but yeah I just I was determined to be successful and I was determined to not let my circumstances hold me back from you know what I wanted to achieve and I just didn't think it was fair that I was in this situation so I wanted to make a better situation for myself and for hopefully my kids which I definitely have like I've never been to Europe still because I worked so much I didn't go on vacation so that's like one of my big things in the next you know year or so I'm finally going to do some of the you know I travel a lot with my kids it's in terms of far you know big vacations I didn't take though is when I was working in LA for that decade I didn't really do anything but work yeah wow so you know just that self determination and your faith in God really helped to spur that kind of ambition so and when you hear someone make an excuses who didn't you know start out the best in life I'm sure that doesn't really work with you right because you're like well look at what I did you know I made it work I worked hard I don't like finger pointing I think finger pointing is really lame and my mom for much of her life was a bit of a victim and I don't like the victim mentality because I do believe there are a lot of things that are in your power to succeed or to get out of a predicament and so I don't really respect people who are not successful and not happy and I don't just mean successful financially I just mean like they're not happy with their lives but they sit in their lounge tear of laziness or despair or victimhood and then point the finger to everybody that's ruined their lives their their life for them and really it's up to us you know and you mentioned faith like when I was 30 12 and then 30 19 I lived with an aunt who was also very abusive she was mentally ill and not kind to me at all but she did take me to church and so I had my diary from back then which she ended up stealing but I remember I wrote in there that she just was not right in the head and so I wrote in there how I'd you know become a Christian and I put the date in there and everything and I'm very grateful for that because that really was life changing for me because then I had that foundation that taught me right from wrong and gave me that love that a fan from a family that maybe I wasn't getting that I kind of felt that love in my heart so that was huge for me. Yeah yeah and obviously you can see the Lord working in your life all the way through up until now and now you're on KLTT AM670 and you know just ironic that I was working with you in news so many years ago and here we are working together again in radio I've been talking with Angie Austin we're going to take a break but we'll be right back. Someone recently asked me why I like Trump my answer was that I don't really like a lot of things about Trump but this election is not about choosing the most likable person we are voting between two vastly different ideologies we are voting for the country we want to leave our children and grandchildren. Trump represents that future and has proven that he can deliver. He is a patriot to the core and even served his country for four years without pay. That moment when someone says I can't believe you're voting for Trump I simply reply I'm voting for the next Supreme Court justices to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I'm voting for a return of our troops from foreign countries and they end to America's involvement in foreign conflicts. I'm voting for the electoral college and for the republic in which we live. I'm voting for the continued appointment of federal judges who respect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I'm voting for keeping our jobs in America not to be outsourced all over the world to China, Mexico and other foreign countries. I'm voting for doing away with all of the freebies given to all of the illegals and not looking after the needs of the American citizens and homeless veterans. I'm voting for the military and the veterans who fought for this country. I'm voting to keep men out of women's sports. I'm voting for peace progress in the Middle East. I'm voting to fight against human and child trafficking. I'm voting for freedom of religion. I'm voting for the return of teaching math, history and science instead of the indoctrination of our children. I'm not just voting for one person. I'm voting for the future of my country. I'm voting for my children and my grandchildren to ensure their freedoms. America is the greatest country in the world hence why everyone wants to immigrate here. So why do you want to change it? Why do politicians want to enact policies that have failed in other countries throughout history? I'm not voting for Trump. I'm voting for America. Your vote counts in this election. Welcome back to Corner Cafe and I'm talking to my good friend Angie Austin. Angie, you know, thank you so much for coming back on the Corner Cafe and I just want to thank you too for all these years of friendship. Oh, thank you. I mean, one thing I would say about you because I did get, you know, a little bit busy with, oh, I would say, you know, like the kids' life, you know, work and then maybe we wouldn't see each other for six months but one thing I've always told you I love about you is you never let our friendship go. You would always put the effort in. I mean, we easily could have like gone, you know, our separate ways when I had kids and, you know, you don't have kids right now and you've been single and you've had, you know, your career, you've really focused on and, you know, you've done it all on your own and it is a struggle sometimes to be by yourself because you're financially responsible for yourself, you're saving for a home by yourself and so I do think, you know, being single is a journey that takes a lot of effort and yes, I did have those kids that took away, you know, my time from, you know, hanging out with you as much during those years, not as much now because they're kind of more self-sufficient. But you always put the effort into keeping in touch and calling me and let's do lunch or texting me and what's going on, do you want to chit chat on the phone or I'm driving home, do you want to talk about this issue that we might like kind of hold each other, like accountability partners, we'd still talk over the years about what was going on and you make sure that we met and kept our friendship going and I appreciate that about you. Oh, well thank you Angie. I don't know, maybe that's a gift that God gave me but I like to keep in touch and you know the important people like yourself definitely want to keep that friendship going and you know I have friends all the way since I was like in middle school all the way up until college and beyond and I'm thankful. I'm thankful. I think relationship is important. We have you have your family relationships but you know I know that the Lord is instilled in you, the value of friendship and relationship. Yeah, I think so. I think that in terms of you know relationships, I you know we've talked about this before I think the Harvard Happiness Study and if you've heard about it I apologize but I think it's so important that they've done decades and decades of research on all these people, these families and they had them write you know really in-depth essays, they did interviews and then it went from one family then they had kids and then they started interviewing those kids and it's going on for so long and so with all of those interviews and all of that research they found that the biggest indicator of happiness is connections, relationships and so I've really determined it in the last I'd say five years how important those are. I've got a girlfriend in California that also went to University Colorado Boulder and we both became weather women in San Diego when we both applied for the same apartment to live in in La Jolla California but we've never met and when we met I'm like oh my gosh you're me, I'm you, we're like mere people you know this is so weird it's like you you know we had so much in comment and so we just had our phone date last Friday and so we might have a phone date every two or three months and you know I'll see her when I go to California but we haven't worked together in decades but we've kept in touch because she's just so delightful and when you have that history with someone like I remember when she was engaged I remember when we were in Vegas and her fiance left her in Vegas I remember when she tried to have kids and she couldn't have kids I remember when she tried to adopt these two you know foster kids and it didn't work out and then she tried to adopt a baby it didn't work out well now she has a kid in first grade you know that she got as an infant so I've been on that whole journey with her so why wouldn't you want to keep that person your life that knows you so well you know and that she just went through a divorce like I'm here for her I knew the guy I knew the whole you know you want those people that really know you and also you know as a person of faith that we can hold each other accountable if we feel that they're string on a path they shouldn't like you're not always open to my advice but sometimes I give it anyway you know to me like sometimes you just want to do tell your friend what you think is best for them even if they don't want to hear it you know yeah yeah it's good to have people like you and I'm thankful for our friendship and forgive me advice even if I don't want to hear it I think that's important I'm honest so you wrote you're like well I'm telling you but I'm not asking for advice right now you said you're not asking for advice I'm just telling you about this but I just want to preface it by saying I'm not asking for advice it seems for some reason in my life seems like everybody wants to give me advice I literally get it all the time which is funny I'm like why does everyone think that they they need to tell me what to do but you know we need to discern between you know friends like you who love and care for us and then all the others in our lives too they're just perhaps people just love telling people what to do I don't know but Angie with your show the good news you left news and you wanted to share good news so kind of talk about how you started the show where the idea came from you know I initially started sharing good news like actual good news stories like yesterday one I would have used for sure was this janitor and all these kids really liked him and they said what would you want you know for your birthday if you could have anything and he said a jeep wrangler but I can't afford it and so the kids started to go fun me and these kids bought him a bread jeep wrangler and he just fell on the ground when he got it he was just so excited but what we need about these kids is they're like he's like a second dad and he loves us he gives us advice and he's so kind and he's always there for us and they're pretty his love for them were so genuine that they believe he loves them because he shows it he doesn't just say I care about you kids he shows it and so they got him this red jeep so that would be a story that I would put in my good news program and then I would talk about it with my friends but then it kind of moved a little bit more towards you know the good news of the bible and talking about our faith and then having people come on and I had some of the best testimonies I've ever experienced where I had con ex-cons former you know prisoners in for a very serious offenses who'd spent you know a decade or more in prison crying in my studio talking about how they you know accepted Christ as their savior in prison and one guy had been very successful named Skip and Skip had been very successful in real estate and business and after I think it was a decker's fire or something like that with his real estate he like fudged a few things and did like a couple of signatures on stuff to try to save deals or to try to you know like keep from losing a lot of money and then it just he said Spiral Dotha control were like one lie let do another let do another let do another and then he went to prison and they kept trying to get him to come to church and he wouldn't go and he's an accountant so he started doing the books for the prison but before those prisons really had like farming and you know other things going on and so he really turned it around like financially he really helped make this particular type of prison successful because he was able to get the books in order and figure out how they could make more money well on Christmas Eve he just he'd been refusing to go to church with everybody and on Christmas Eve the pastor came to like where he was working if I recall correctly in the prison and he brought some rather large inmates with him and they said that they wanted him to come to church that night and then if he refused that this giant man was going to carry him in and he walked into the church and he said when he was walking down the aisle he said this he just overcome with this feeling this like joy or relief or peace and he just fell to his knees and was sobbing and so that was like change even he started working with homeless teens when he got out of prison and started a non-profit and then I two of the other guys that were there with him their testimonies were equally equally as moving and they were and and then you know Charles Friedrich that works that Terry Hills he was in for attempting to hire someone to kill his brother-in-law because he was doing something since it was sister-in-law our sister was like I want him dead which is so crazy if you know Charles does he's a gentle giant right so he never did anything he talked to someone about it but that was conspiracy to hire someone to murder someone or something of the sort so he was in a parabato decade and his sister went to prison too but what's amazing about that is she stayed married and they reconciled and I believe everything worked out with the husband I did not know that yeah but I know it's a miracle and with Charles he gave his life to Christ while he was in prison I mean he knows that Bible backwards and forwards and now he works with people as they're you know exiting the prison and they're in the program for like let's say the halfway houses and he takes these guys to church he takes them on outings they get involved in feeding the homeless I mean his whole life now is devoted to the Lord and he works at one of the biggest largest most prestigious churches in in you know in Colorado yeah with my brother-in-law yeah yeah it's a crazy connection to that you were connected to him and my sister's married to one of his really good friends just a small world Angie Cornel Cafe is under the brand influencers TV and you know I see influence as everyone has influence it's not just the Quenacot influencers of the society you know the famous people but how do you see influence and what do you think is a positive influence and how can we be a positive influence well I think you know that's something I struggle with all the time these like teenagers you know and then you get angry and you yell at them and then you apologize and you know it's interesting because I've raised kids that now are waking me up to go to church you know what I mean like I've raised kids that there's a new Bible study because my kids go to a fellowship of Christian athletes they go to young life they have a Bible study in the morning and then they have their youth group at church on Sunday nights and then they go to church Sunday morning so that's like five times right so then they've been getting up for another Bible study they get about 6 a.m. before school two or three days a week depending on the week and I'm like well what's this new Bible study and who is leaving that and faith my daughter said oh hope's leaving it my older daughter I'm not sure what she said yeah she's teaching the younger athletes she's working with the younger volleyball and like basketball players the freshman and the sophomore and she leaves the Bible study we meet at Starbucks once a week and hopes the leader and I'm like what and so like here I've raised these kids that like they're leaving now you know what I mean and I don't really know how that happened like my son he's not in the Greek system at University Colorado Boulder his Greek system is young life and they've already done an outing up in the mountains in October all these colleges come together at the young life camp up at cripple creek up in a set of razor I think and it's like all these universities and they do zip lining and but the thing is that he has friends now and he doesn't live up there and he's not in the Greek system but he has a huge group of friends last night they played volleyball and had pizza and then the night before it was the freshman meeting where they do a freshman Bible study and then he's on a freshman group meet with all the freshman young life kids and you can imagine at a university of almost 40 thousand kids how big the young life grew bit yeah so they do barbecues and all kinds of sports and and getaways and retreats and he's only been doing it for like less than a month and he's got so many friends already he drew five boys up to the retreat yeah so that was a great answer to to the question how do you know if you're a good influencer positive one if you raise positive influential kids you know you did the job well I guess my I I straight a little because I don't know that I live up to what I was supposed to do but they're that they've turned out well but you know when I yell at them I feel bad you know like I had some terrible example or like somebody in traffic a few months ago they were like a jerk and they honked at me and I stuck my tongue out of it out of them and Riley made a face and then and I said oh gosh we should never do that because we could be at shot you know and I said sorry I did that was a bad example I was like oh Karen she was a jerk and I'm like yeah but we shouldn't do that I'm a horrible example and so yeah I I'm trying to be a better sample but I think that you know when I have all the for me I am able to practice my faith and be a good example through choosing guests wisely I think that oftentimes are talking about their books or their lives or their testimony oh and the other great testimony besides those prisoners were the Denver Rescue Mission if you ever get a chance to look into their program or they rehabilitate homeless you know people drug addicts other people that are getting through addiction it is mind blowing the turn around these men make well Angie I just want to thank you for everything you do and the years that you've worked with the good news the good news with Angie us and the airs on AM670 KLTT Monday through Friday at 2 p.m so definitely tune into that and thanks for tuning into the corner cafe I'm gonna have Angie Austin back in the future and we're gonna see ya next week this is your arrow over call me what she's doing right here at the corner get there [Music]