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Best TV Personality 33.75% Melissa Long/WPTA*
Others with Votes:
1998 Winner: n/a
1997 Winner: Melissa Long
* On the ballot
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Anchoring at 5:00 pm and 11:00 pm each weeknight on Channel 21, WPTA-TV,
Melissa Long earns the nod as Most Popular Televison personality. An
honesty and attitude and charm are transmitted through the air and into our
television when she's on. At least that's what I think.
Long has maintained a following while mostly anchored behind the news desk
for the broadcasts. She has a grasp of how to use her few minutes of
television time each night.
"I think the thing that makes us good is that, Keith, Curtis and Dean and I
enjoy interacting," she says. "And you know, part of doing the news is
performance and some acting, and I enjoy that aspect of it."
A hometown girl, Long thinks she may have received some votes out of family
loyalty.
I have a built-in audience here, she says. "I'm someone they know, and
except for living in California for a few years, I have been in Fort Wayne."
The articulate Long also stays in the public eye with a number of social
duties.
"I do a lot of speaking and hosting," she says. "When I'm asked to do
something, it's usually on behalf of 21.
"Nothing is forced [on the air]," Long says. "I've always tried to do
just a few things: be natural, relaxed and be real. And that does get hard,
because you are doing the same stories each year, with Three Rivers and
lighting of the Christmas scene."
Still, she makes even those annual events memorable. And she can handle a
little adversity too, as anyone who watched her fight off the crowd as she
hosted the station's on-air New year's Eve coverage can tell.
Long often can be seen giggling as they station comes out of a commercial
and back into the news. Most of the time it's as Long and partner
Keith Edwards are about to introduce Curtis Smith with the weather or Dean
Pantazzi and sports. But the giggling and the way she responds to a playful
attack from Pantazzi are so popular with Fort Wayne watchers.
Real and relaxed. It should be so easy. (Rob Nichols)
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