Friday, February 24, 2012

Roz Varon Salutes Literacy

This is a sporadic series which allows me to wax nostalgic on a series of ads I ran for the Newspaper In Education program while I was at Lerner Newspapers.

When I was selecting celebrities to pursue as spokespeople for the NIE ad series, I was always looking for big Chicago names.  At the time, Roz Varon had over 20 years of radio and television exposure in the Chicago area (and she is still going strong).
Varon is perhaps most known for her work in traffic reporting, but she has also been a news reporter, as well as a radio and tv host.  She is very well known to Chicago tv viewers and radio listeners of all ages.
I was proud to get Varon, because of her Chicago fame, but also because she was born and raised here and has never strayed (although she has appeared on national programming).  Plus, I was a big fan (still am).  Adding all of these factors makes Varon the perfect spokesperson for the literacy campaign.  I have never had the pleasure of meeting her, but from all accounts, she is very nice.
Shortly after the ad ran, it was announced that Varon had breast cancer.  Fortunately, years later, she is a breast cancer survivor!

Reading can take you places beyond your wildest imagination.
--Roz Varon as quoted in the NIE ad series in Lerner Newspapers in 2004.

2 comments:

Jean Parker said...

Roz is a good traffic reporter for ABC news and it is great to hear she supported your literacy campaign back in the day. It is also great to hear that she is doing well and a survivor of breast cancer.

Lizzy R said...

She is great! I have enjoyed watching her for years. She still looks awesome!