The ABWA Honors Lois Thome

Anchorwoman Lois Thome has been in the middle of breaking news. But she's happiest when she's in the middle of a room full of schoolchildren.

"Being the anchorperson itself doesn't get me going. It's talking to kids and being around their excitement," she says. "I love children. So being around them just makes me feel wonderful."

Thome, who joined WINK-TV in 1992, co-anchors the 5, 6 and 11 p.m. news. But her education coverage has earned special praise in the community, as she and the station have made a commitment to reporting on local school news and important issues. The station's daily education segments, including the 5:30 p.m. "Eye on Education" report, stemmed from her reports after the deadly Columbine High School shootings in 1998 in which she talked to the victims' families and brought the issue home by reporting on safety in schools.

"I think we're breaking ground. No station in country does segments like we do. Most have education beats," she says. "Unfortunately there's so little time to do all of the news of the day that those stories would just fall through the cracks. Because we dedicated this segment twice a day, it's a priority for us. The education community has just responded wonderfully. I wouldn't be surprised if more stations kind of develop this philosophy."

Thome is looking forward to expanding the education coverage, possibly with half-hour specials. She has also volunteered with education initiatives including the Lee County Reading Festival, Gulf Coast High School's Sports and Entertainment Marketing Academy and other mentoring and reading programs in the schools.

Her strong commitment to the education programs in the area was the reason the committee chose Thome, Waite says.

Thome, 40, didn't originally plan to be on TV or in the schools. She was pre-med at the University of Wiscon-sin with plans to be a dentist, but chemistry courses changed her mind. She took a writing course and enjoyed it so much that she made a switch to journalism and got an internship at a local TV station.

Upon graduation, Thome stayed in Wisconsin, working in Madison and Green Bay before moving to Fort Myers. Actually, her demo tape was passed around to news directors in Orlando and Palm Beach before landing in Fort Myers, which had been without a female anchor for several months, she says.

Instead of climbing the TV ladder, Thome has stayed in Southwest Florida, partly because of the community. "It's a small enough town that you can make a difference," she says.

She's also felt the community's support while pregnant with her son, Nicholas, who was born in December 2003. "When I was pregnant, everyone was involved in my pregnancy. Now when I go to the grocery store, people say, 'Is that Nicholas?' He's part of their life, too."

These days, Thome spends the morning with her son and then mans evening newscasts. She also tries to arrange her interviews so she's not visiting schools in the morning. "I do have to juggle things," she says. Thome says that a difficult part of being on the evening newscasts is that she is not home to tuck her child into bed. "It is hard to miss those times, but I have a loving and accommodating husband who is always there to make things work," she says.

She says she believes she is blessed as a working parent because she has help from her husband as well as her in-laws, who live in the area and are willing to baby-sit when there are professional conflicts. "There are many other moms out there trying to make it on their own. I don't have to do that," she says.

Her best tip for other working moms is to make sure they have they priorities straight. "In my life my son and my family come first and my job second," she says. "What I do for a living is just a job. What I do with my son will make him successful in life. Is there anything more important than that?"