Carol Adams overcomes the odds

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Carol Adams has risen to the top quickly in her short 26 years.

It's a dream come true.

And Adams is enjoying the ride.

But she has paid her dues.

She's made the most progress in the last year jumping to the top, thanks to CBC's 24-hour a day television news channel seen coast to coast in Canada.

It's "quite an accomplishment," Adams freely offers.

She's the Calgary co-host of This Country on national prime time TV with Whit Fraser, whose face is well-known to Canadians from St. John's, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia. The show runs 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday with a variety of regional news broadcasts.

She didn't get where she is by accident. "I set a goal to be a national news anchor. And I am one."

Adams, who was born in Saskatchewan, is likely the country's first national Native anchorperson, a distinction she relishes.

"It makes me proud I'm doing this as a Metis person," shy says. "I love having brown skin. It may be a vain thing to say, but it's true."

She's particularly tickled when shyly approached by Native children and youth.

"I'm living proof what they heard (about not making it ) is not true. You can do it.

"I've overcome the odds in a sense."

Although she didn't consciously set out to be a role model, she's well aware she is one.

And like many Native people, she's also felt the racist barbs that come with being Native.

"I noticed it more on the weekend when I'm dresses in my sweats. I might go into a store and not get served as quickly (as a non-Native).

"Thankfully I haven't had to go through as much as some people. I've heard stories and they anger me - you go look at an apartment and they tell it's not available anymore,"

Adams is quick to respond, although diplomatically, to people with negative attitudes towards Natives. Racism is a fact of life for her people, she says, but it does appear to be on the decline.

Two short years ago she was a writer/broadcaster for CBC-TV in Saskatoon working on documentaries like solvent abuse by Saskatchewan youth. She had a smaller audience then, but her work was still being aired prime time during the weekday 6 p.m. newscast.

Adams' dream was born when she was 14 years old and her class toured a television station. Looking around she saw people having fun at their jobs.

"Everything was just fascinating. It seemed like a fun, interesting job, where you could grow," she says.

Adams was born in Sedley, Saskatchewan, a community of 200 people, where she grew up as the only Native person and graduated from Grade 12. To this day though she doesn't know who her parents are.

Her adopted family made sure her needs were net, she says.

"I was part of that sweep of little Native kids but I'm not bitter. I never looked for my parents. For some reason I never wanted to. I just felt I never lacked for anything."

Adams took radio and television arts at SAIT.

But it was in Regina, where she produced a radio show at the tender age of 19 she got a crash course in broadcasting. It was a "baptism by fire," she recalls -- not so fondly.

Also at the age of 19, she snagged her first anchor job. Working at CKTV Regina as an anchor/reporter was "probably the best training I ever had."

As the weekend noon-hour anchorperson, Adams wrote the news and lined it up, read the sports and gave the weather forecast. A lone technician operated the camera and the control room. We hoped nothing went wrong and nothing did. It was exciting."

As a part of This Country in Calgary, Adams has 15 other people with whom to share the burden.

All she has to do is read the news and interview guest.

It might sound easy.

It isn't.

Very few people across the country have to perform live for six hours a day in a prime-time spot to a national audience.

The days can be grueling.

Although the show doesn't go on until 4 p.m. some work days start at 9 a.m. and run until 10 p.m. After working what's typically a 10-hour day, she'll frequently go home and watch The ournal and then the CTV national news. She's a self-described "news junkie."

But on the weekends, she lets her hair down and puts her feet up. No reading the papers. "I walk around with boots and a backpack."

The job pays well - in the area of $50,000 a year - and her clothing is paid for but there's no overtime. "It's not a tremendous amount for what we do and the work we do. I was making almost as much in Saskatoon (but) without the perks."

But it is a long way from the $800 a month she earned when she broke into broadcasting.

Adams loves being part of stories as they break and bringing the news to Canadians. "When things like the Berlin Wall (coming down) are happening and you're there via satellite, it's exciting.

She also enjoys being with a pioneer television news channel, which she sees as a "way to bring the country together." The channel is "still experiencing growing pains," she says.

Adams candidly admits to having the sizable ego, which reputedly television personalities possess. "You need a big ego to be in television, period. There's a tremendous amount of stress and bullshit and that's one way to (handle) it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying."