God Save the Queen

So my niece, Ashley, took me on an interesting little fieldtrip today. She stayed overnight at my house last night becasue she had to be at the WCIA/Channel 3 studio this morning here in Champaign at 5:15 a.m. to appear on the "Ag Update" on The Morning Show at 5:45 a.m. to promote the Ford County Fair in her capacity as the reigning Ford County Fair Queen. Staying at my house provided her with an extra 30 plus minutes of beauty sleep. I went along as I had never been to a tv studio before. Good thing I did as I was in charge of sash pinning, and gave the "thumbs up" on crown placement.

Ashley did a great job on air, they won't be able to keep people from attending the Ford County Fair. I was able to sit in studio and watch Ashley's segment, along with the preceding 5-10 minutes of live news coverage. So, tv news is really not all that glamorous, especially at the butt crack of dawn. While I was on the set the weather reporter spilled her ice tea all over the counter (evidently this is a regular occurence) and saw a couple of "off camera" anchor yawns and eye rolls. Evidently the Ford County Fair is not breaking new because they basically sat Ashely down in the chair, slapped a mic on her lapel, the anchor/reporter moved over to her chair during the commercial break introduced herself, Ashley asked her what questions she would be asking her, boom they were live, it was over, out the door a few minutes later.

WCIA is supposed to have the video clip posted on-line, but I don't see up there yet. When they do I will put up the link. In the meantime here is a pic of Ashley looking very "unqueenly" last night. I didn't get a picture this morning, so I can't post a before/after for you. This morning I was much too entertained watching and listening to Ashley curse the "queen routine"... the pantyhose, full make-up, hair curling, suit, heels, and crown thing are definitely NOT part of her typical everyday routine, neither was the 4 a.m. wake-up-call.

After her segment, we came back to my house for Ashley to change and then went to Le Peep for breakfast before I headed to work. We actually got to Le Peep at 6:20, 10 minutes before they opened. Ashley's quote of the day was "Wow, you know it is early when you the breakfast restaurant isn't even open yet!"