janis settle murray

Laguna Beach / CA 92651

Spouse: Dave

Education: U-Michigan, BS Political Science / Columbia University, NYC, MS Graduate School of Journalism

Bio:
My happiest times at Seaholm were English & Latin classes, because I loved to write. I wrote my first essay in Freshman Comp. at U-M, the prof. called, and placed me out of the course into Senior Year Creative Writing. I spent 2 summers as an intern at NBC News in Washington DC, and found my calling. It was television news. The amalgam of spoken writing, video and soundtrack to tell a story fascinated me. I went to work as a news writer, then editor for the NBC News Radio Network at 30 Rock in NYC after graduate school, then came back to Detroit as a Television News Reporter for Ch. 4 WDIV-TV in the late ‘70’s. The sexism towards the first “blonde, young female” reporter was pretty horrendous from the dominant “middle-aged white guy” reporters in the home of the Teamsters & the UAW. So I left to anchor the noon news and report for the NBC station in St. Louis, KSDK-TV. There, I met and married the new, young phenom weather guy, the first bona fide meteorologist grabbing ratings every night in “Tornado Alley”, Dave Murray. He was quickly hired away by “Good Morning America” as Chief Meteorologist/Weathercaster with David Hartman & Joan Lunden and we moved to NYC spending most of the ‘80’s back East. I became a CNN Reporter in the NE Bureau out of NYC. So Dave was working early mornings done by 9am and on my way to CNN downtown (in the old Tower One of the WTC), I would literally hand off our 1 yr. old son to Dave in the ABC parking structure on the Upper West Side. We were doing very well, but had no life… what is called “work/life balance” today. “Eu Pairs” (European Nannies) we’re known to swipe your husband or your silver, and I certainly didn’t want that, but there was no formal daycare yet either. So I was missing our child’s life and we only had one. Then, amazingly, St. Louis put a better offer on the table to bring us back. Dave had been missing serious thunderstorm forecasting (MS in meteorology on scholarship U-Wyoming) and entertainment, to him, was boring. So we moved back to St. Louis, which we loved. I left news, spent 15 years in corporate communication training as a consultant for such companies as McDonalds, Edward Jones, & Mercy Hospitals, then started MURRAY PREP LLC: Communication Training for College & Careers which I have run now for 22 years. With ambitious clients aged 13 to 75 so far, I prepare them for merit scholarship & employment interviews, create effective resumes, and focus on Message Mapping for essays/cover letters that pinpoint what the client brings to the table because each decision-making body is focused on “What’s In It For Me” if we choose you. Since COVID, I Zoom mostly now with select clients across the country, since I am contemplating retirement. Dave retired from television in 2018 and we moved to our second home in Laguna Beach, CA. He still feeds radio stations daily in the Midwest where he was recently inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame holding 12 Emmies. Our son is a proud Trojan graduate of USC with an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently Director of Pricing for Home Furnishings, WALMART USA. We have one grandson 2 1/2yrs…. Only challenge is if you want to be big at WALMART you have to live in NW Arkansas where the Walton’s, like Disney in Florida, bought up the region! So we visit often keeping one leg in the Midwest and the other in our mountain/oceanview cottage here. Idyllic. Best to all, Janis

My photos: