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Thursday, August 22, 2013

When I Grow Up...

I once wanted to be the real Scooby Doo. LOL
By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

When I was in second grade, I had my first revelation about what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I can still remember proudly announcing it on the playground that my goal in life was to be... Scooby Doo.  Yes, the animated Great Dane.  Not the guy who voiced the famous cartoon dog.  Not the person who drew Scooby or even the one wrote the scripts for the show.  I wanted to be a cartoon dog.

Proud owner of Kevin's Pets
It wasn't much later in that same year that I came to the realization that that simply wasn't going to happen.  I don't remember the exact moment when it hit me, but I decided to switch gears and focus my future on owning a pet shop.  My mom made an apron with "Kevin's Pets" on the front when we had career day at school.

By fourth grade, my focus shifted again.  I wanted to be a rock star.  However, I had no musical experience except for those fancy little recorders we had to play during music class.  I couldn't (and still can't sing) and I ended up dropping out of middle school band in seventh grade.  As elementary school was wrapping up, I declared my intentions to become a writer.  I wanted to write books and actually found a lot of enjoyment in writing short stories.  I still like writing, I just wish I was a better storyteller.

High school me, DJ wanna be
Finally in high school I got a bit more focused on what I wanted to do.  I still wish I would have worked more on writing and gotten involved with the school newspaper, but hindsight is 20/20.  My junior year I took a new class called Current Events.  In it, we learned about the stock market, resume writing, and even had a mock job interview.  This is where one of the most embarrassing moments in my high school career happened.

During my interview, which was in front of the entire class, I told the teacher playing the role of the employer that I wanted to be a disc jockey.  Things were going well up until the point he said, "Let me hear your radio voice.  What would you say on the air?" I froze.  I hadn't thought that far ahead.  I could feel a cold sweat starting.  My mouth got dry and my throat tightened.  In my best "DJ" sounding voice, I sputtered a bunch of nonsense as quickly as I could.  I created some goofy name like "Crazy Kevin" or something like that.  It was horrid.  I could hear chuckles from behind me as my classmates obviously were laughing at me and not with me.  The teacher looked at me and said, "You've got some work to do on that." but was not overly critical.

It really wasn't until I got into college that I actually took some initiative and started writing for the Capaha Arrow, the student newspaper at Southeast Missouri State University.  I also volunteered at the student radio station and helped run cameras for an upper level video class.

I think all these aspirations helped lead me to the path I finally ended up on.  I love my job as a journalist and I enjoy being a part of a fun and successful news team at WSIL.  I guess I didn't turn out too bad, considering I wanted to be a cartoon dog at one point in my life.


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