One of Alaska's most prolific TV personalities is celebrating four decades on the statewide airwaves.
But don't worry, Alaska's News Source meteorologist Jackie Purcell is not retiring. Purcell and the Anchorage-based TV station recently marked the occasion of her 40 years there with a half-hour special, calling it "40 years and counting."
It's not just a celebration of Purcell's career, but also her success as a homegrown talent, who graduated from Anchorage's Bartlett High School.
And Purcell says she got her start, not in TV, but in radio.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Jackie Purcell: I moved to Oklahoma, because I had some friends down there, and I did get my first job. It took me about six months of calling this radio station once a month, because my mom, she had great advice. She goes, "You know, you have to be persistent, but don't be a pest." So I figured, "I think once a month is good." A job opening came up, and they're like, "Why don't we call that girl that calls us every month?"
Casey Grove: That's what happens. Somebody quits or something.
JP: Yeah. So I waited.
CG: Persistent, but not a pest. I like that.
JP: Well, that'll get you far in life, You know, to tell you the truth.
CG: You still have a great voice for radio, but you don't have that thing that we say in radio, like, "You have a face for radio." You have a voice and a face for radio and TV.
JP: Oh, well, thank you, Casey.
CG: That's my awkward segue way to 40 years of TV. Now, over that time, what kind of things have changed just in broadcast media in general?
JP: When I started, it was in the Fourth Avenue Theatre building downtown, in the basement, and the equipment was all big and heavy. When I started doing the weather, boy, I tell you what, the machine that used to spit out one satellite picture was like the size of a small Volkswagen, and I used to have to ask them to make a picture. But if I wanted an updated picture for 10 (the late news), I had to ask them again. So they'd push the button, the machine would warm up for like 20 minutes, and it would spit out a picture.
And to think that now you just go up and you pull it up on the internet. We have weather computers. We can pull up all sorts of parameters. You know, "What's the water vapor imagery, what's the visible satellite imagery? What is the temperature profile?" You know, all sorts of things. It's just been amazing. It's like going from a Polaroid, I was told at one point, and that kind of data, to a digital photograph that had so many more layers. You know?
CG: Yeah. It's funny thinking about jobs where you just don't know where it's going to lead. And here you are, right?
JP: I know, like the that's the philosophy. You just get up every day, you do your best, you put one foot in front of the other. And you know what? I was fired my first day on the job here in Anchorage, Alaska, at a different radio station. And it really was a letdown. I was devastated, but it really taught me a valuable lesson. And again, my mom was like, "Well, you just got to get up and put one foot in front of the other, honey, and start all over again."
And I always tell school kids that failure, don't look at it as failure. It's a stepping stone. You use that stepping stone to success. You know, each failure teaches you something else, and sometimes it's not even your fault. You just weren't the right person at that time.
CG: But like you said, keep putting one foot in front of the other.
JP: Oh yeah. And truthfully, there were times when people didn't believe in me, but I believed in myself. I thought, "I can do this," you know?
CG: Speaking of putting one foot in front of the other and just coming in every day and doing your job, you've been a weather forecaster for a long time, and I wonder how has Alaska's weather changed? Just doing it day in day out, what have you seen that's changed, compared to back in the day?
JP: It's funny to say it's milder and more severe at the same time, but that's kind of the truth, because, I would say, when I started, you were in winter mode. Sometimes you had some bad storms, but generally it stayed cold over the sea ice. They had a protective layer of sea ice over Northwest Alaska that would almost protect them from those waves or winter storm actions, which they do not have anymore. So tundra thawing, also, the tree line going farther north into the Brooks Range, past the Brooks Range at times, glaciers melting, severe storms that, like I said, like Halong. If it had been a different time, maybe decades prior, they might have had enough ice that would have shielded all those coastal communities.
CG: Yeah.
I feel like you're one of the most recognizable people in Alaska. I mean, I've been driving by and seen you doing live shots and shouted, "Hey, Jackie," and you waved like you knew who it was. What's that like, though? I mean, is it tough to just go out and get groceries and people see you on a daily basis. Or what's that like?
JP: I wouldn't say tough, but it is, yes, recognizable, and I make my husband do a lot of the grocery shopping. We laugh about it, because when I go to the grocery store, it takes a little bit longer, because people are like, "Hey!" and then I stop and chat for a while. He's able to just get in and out, you know.
But I think that I I like it, to tell you the truth, because I had a consultant say to me one time, which, you know, we didn't deal with a lot of consultants, but he said something that was very flattering, I felt. He said, "Jackie, you're pretty much the same on TV as you are off TV." And I was like, "Wow, are some people not the same? He goes, "Oh, they're so nice on TV, but not nice in person." And I go, "Wow, how exhausting, to be two different people," you know?
But that's what I love the most, is being able to talk to people. It's like they invite you into their living room by turning on that TV. And really, this past couple of weeks, I've gotten so many nice comments. I prepared for some bad ones, but I haven't seen them yet. Some nice comments, you know, "You've been in our family for decades. We always say, 'What's Jackie say?'" And that, to me, is so precious.
