What’s the scoop?
Former anchor Mary Jo West still keeping herself busy
If you’ve lived in the Phoenix area for a long time and you’re walking through Sky Harbor International Airport — that woman, over by the information desk? She sure looks familiar.
And her voice. Who is that? Wait a second … that’s Mary Jo h West. “I am the mature, blonde smiling woman behind the h information desk,” West says, laughing, as she often does. “I feel very blessed that I still get recognized. I get recognized at the airport, or at Circle K or whatever. Sometimes it’s my voice,
as well as my face. I always use humor and warmth. I say, ‘Thanks for remembering me. As you can see, I’m a lot older and wider, but I’ve never been happier.’” She sounds it.
Of course, many of the people asking which escalator takes them to baggage claim have no idea that West was the first woman to anchor a television news show in Arizona, co-anchoring at the old KOOL station (now Channel 10) with Valley legend Bill Close, who was not crazy about the arrangement. West, however, persevered, and worked at the station from 1976 to 1982, before a stint in New York that didn’t work out; she returned and anchored at Channel 3 from 1983 to 1986.
She was a true pioneer, and last year was selected for inclusion in the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame. And she was about as famous as you could get in the Valley. When she played Maria in a 1982 Phoenix Theatre production of “The Sound of Music,” the massive box office returns helped save the company.
After she left the news business, West started a communications company and worked for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, and then St. Vincent de Paul. Then she retired.
It didn’t take.
“For five years I gave my all, and still do, helping grandkids and doing lots of volunteer work and helping terminally ill friends, get them to their death, those kinds of things,” she says. “But I felt my brain was kind of needing some stimulation. So after five years I just found the perfect, perfect part-time job for me, and I started it in January.”
That’s the gig at Sky Harbor, where she works four days a week, bouncing from terminal to terminal.
“I answer a million questions a day,” she says.
Seems fair, since she’s probably asked a million herself. Not that she looks back much.
“I don’t dwell on it because I try to live in the moment,” West says. “But I am very proud that all of that stuff that I did was teamwork. I’m not just being overly Pollyanna-ish — it was teamwork, and I was on some great teams, especially on
SPECIAL FOR THE REPUBLIC
Mary Jo West and Ken Coy appear on the Jerry Lewis Telethon in 1980. my days at KOOL News.”
This is not to say that it was easy being the first woman in a traditionally male role. But she never backed down.
“I did go through some really, really tough times,” she says. “It was just a small percentage of the older men, not the younger men I came along with.” West stuck it out, and survived. “There was nothing that was going to stop me,” she says. “I probably had an inflated sense of self-importance for representing women, and nothing was going to stop me.”
If you had asked her during her fight for equality if things would be more inclusive in 2019, well, the answer would have been yes.
“I did think it was going to be so much better,” she says. “And it has improved a bit. But we still have a long way to go. I’d like to see more women at the top as far as management goes, in those positions, as well. And also more minorities, of course.”
Here’s the thing about journalism: It’s like a disease. Once you catch it, whether you work in the business for 20 minutes or 20 years, it never really goes away. Of course West keeps up with the news (“with today’s political chaos, I’m trying to keep an open mind”), and mostly leaves it at that. But every once in a while. …
“There are days that I miss it,” she says. “But boy, did I have a rewarding run … There are some days when major stories break that I just really, really want to be out there,” she said. “But I try not to dwell on that anymore.”
Instead, she dwells on her grandchildren; her job at Sky Harbor leaves her time for that. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t keep an eye on the media landscape, still — and have some opinions.
“I’m impressed with the talent that I see there’s a lot of good talent out there, a lot of people working hard,” she said. “I would like to see more anchors locally and nationally be in the field more, because when I came along, we had to report. We didn’t just show up and spend hours getting ready. We were out getting fried in the sun and wet in the rain and all that.
“And the No. 1 complaint is the obvious. We were taught in journalism school, and in my early years at Channel 10, that you Must, with a capital M, have both sides of the story, and it has to be equal time. We tried to be a lot more objective than we see today.”
But she’s happier now talking about how the people at Sky Harbor often open up to her about their lives. Or to talk about her grandchildren.
“It’s just a great life.”