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10/12/2019 - I left radio this year on September 6th. Ten days later, Georgia’s 1stDistrict Congressman Buddy Carter recognized my 21 years on the radio in Savannah on the House floor at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. And I just found out about it! 😊

Late yesterday afternoon, my former co-host Bill told me that a package had arrived at the radio station for me from Congressman Buddy Carter’s office. Well, last weekend I reached out to his office with my voice over credentials to solicit myself for a shot at voicing Congressman Carter's future political commercials. His wonderful assistant Mary said she’d forward my audio and info to his campaign folks and I said ‘thank you’. There wasn’t enough time for anything to have been mailed to Savannah between my first email and the package arriving. Besides, what would they be sending me? We can do voice overs via the internet.

Well, I can get quite curious and impatient at times, and when that happens I often turn to Google. Bill said he didn’t know what was in the package, so I just searched for Laura Anderson + Congressman Buddy Carter. 

And there it was! (see play button below) Holy cow! My eyes welled-up as I watched it. I was humbled when Buddy called me on my last day on-air to wish me well. This is over-the-top cool! I can only imagine that the package I have to wait until Tuesday to pick-up has something to do with that awesome gesture.

When I fell in love with radio during my junior year of high school, it was for the music and the entertainment of radio. I took the vocational radio course my senior year and was named Broadcasting Student of the Year, still one of my most treasured honors. I had always planned to go to college and continued with that plan. My high school teacher said I should major in something as a backup that could augment my aspiration of a career in radio, should I need it. So, I majored in Broadcast Journalism. After completing some TV news internships, I was really sure that I wanted to stay away from news and politics, two things my most recent nearly 8-year radio job in Savannah covered. I’m a moderate and I don’t like the constant focus on the negative that drives so much of news media. 

During my time at the radio station, I had a chance to interview people from politicians and Presidential candidates, to balanced FOX News Radio and NBC News Radio reporters, to astronauts and celebrities and I really enjoyed that. I had been fond of Congressman Carter and our frequent on-air conversations just solidified that.  I was even able to help facilitate putting his office in touch with Coast Guard headquarters via my twin sister, a Reserve Lt. Commander in the Coast Guard, so that Congressman Carter could see all that the Coast Guard does for national security, and so that the Coast Guard could have the ear of a politician to express their needs. 

What’s really cool is that one of Congressman Carter’s weekly newsletters included a photo of him at CG HQ with my sister, and then on a different line, a mention of his morning chat with Bill and me. I printed it and framed it. :-)

In my early radio dreams, there was nothing in there about being recognized on the House floor. All of these years later, I can say that it feels wonderful and I am very grateful to Congressman Buddy Carter for making such a grand gesture on my behalf!