Gay Vernon, the daughter of two-time American League batting champion and professional baseball player Micky Vernon, is a 1970 graduate of Nether Providence High School and former co-host of a radio show hosting Rosalynn Carter and other famous women.
According to Vernon, in high school she participated in cheerleading, senior chorus, Meister singers (a little group within the senior chorus), Student Council, the foreign exchange student club, JV basketball, the yearbook staff, dance committee, the National Honor Society, and had a small part in the senior play, “You Can’t Take it With You.” She also helped run the school store for two years, selling pencils and notebook paper, was involved in the musicals, and was on the staff of “The Web,” which was a literary magazine.
After high school, she went to Marietta College, a small liberal arts school in Marietta, Ohio to major in broadcasting and music.
“I didn’t want to go to a big university where perhaps in my freshman year, I would have to choose one or the other for that path. At a small college like the one I chose, I could volunteer and learn how to run a TV camera my freshman year without declaring my major,” Vernon said.
Vernon had a very brief one-year stint doing sports on a tiny TV station in Manchester, New Hampshire. The rest of her career was spent in radio, where she started out in small markets doing behind the scenes work, gradually gaining opportunities to work on the air.
“In early 1981 or so, I was finally offered a job in Boston as a newscaster and as an interviewer for features that were going to be used in a so-called morning show,” Vernon said.
Most of Vernon’s radio career was spent working for two different radio stations in Boston by serving as the news director, morning news anchor, public affairs director, and doing the interviewing for public affairs programming. At the second station, WMJX, she hosted a show called “Boston Life,” welcoming all kinds of people to come in and tell her about the wonderful community work they were doing.
“I was lucky enough to meet and interview a lot of outstanding women for a specific radio show called ‘Exceptional Women,” Vernon said.
Guests on the show included Sally Ride, the first woman in space, and Sunita Williams, an astronaut that was stuck on a shuttle for about nine extra months and just returned home.
“Lots of them were famous, and many of them, you would not know their name and you would just be bowled over,” Vernon said.
According to the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame, Vernon co-hosted with Candy O’Terry “Exceptional Women,” which won 23 Gracie awards.
“I worked alongside very professional, wonderful, talented people everywhere I went, and that was really huge, because when you’re collaborating with people who are smarter than you and more creative than you, it just helps you move your career along,” Vernon said.
The small class size at Nether Providence High School and encouragement from teachers allowed students to use their voices often and be heard. This made Vernon very comfortable speaking to groups and panels when she got to college.
“And then, of course, I became a speech and communications major. I just felt even more comfortable being on the campus radio and TV stations, leading to the career that I loved,” Vernon said.
Vernon was also honored with The Jimmy Award for her support of the Jimmy Fund at Dana-Farber in 2006, an institution that helps patients with cancer.
Mickey Vernon, Vernon’s father, was a professional baseball player and lived only two blocks from the high school. Because of this, Jim Vankoski, a retired social studies teacher, dean, and baseball coach at Nether Providence High School, met him and has since known Gay Vernon for many years. According to Vankoski, Vernon is the type of person that you would meet for five minutes and then become your best friend.
“She would be at home in any type of environment with any type of person no matter what the educational level happened to be. She’s an inspiration,” Vankoski said.
