Chattanooga’s 1st Anchorwoman: Jackie Schulten, ’70s style

By now, you may have seen at least one of Will Ferrell’s “Anchorman” movies.  If not, I’ll bet you’ve seen one of the eight thousand commercials he’s done in connection with it.  Personally, I was so burned out by the constant promotion, I got tired of the new movie before it opened.  Still, I can’t deny that Ferrell’s portrayal of Ron Burgundy, the clueless, egotistical 1970s-vintage news anchor has given me a few laughs.

Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone, as played by Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate

Now, I happen to know quite a few gentlemen who were real-life news anchors of that era.  Did they have a helmet of AquaNet-sprayed thick, wavy hair?  Absolutely.  Did they wear loud polyester jackets and mile-wide ties?  You bet.  Were they buffoonish blowhards and Scotch-soaked sexists?   Well, I wasn’t around them every minute of the day.

WTVC News Team, typical of 1970s TV

But this much I know: in 1973, Miss Jackie Schulten rocked their world.  Twenty-two years old, and barely out of the University of Georgia, the Atlanta native had grown up watching TV news reporters, 95 percent of them male, and decided she was going to be one.  Her first TV job was in Little Rock, Arkansas where she pleaded for an office job, just to get a foot in the door.  “I worked with the real life Anchorman,” she told me, even naming his name.  (I won’t do that here, because he’s still around and I try to stay out of court.)  Anyway, this guy with the blow-dried hair and the deep voice would leer and wink and say inappropriate things.  “Just part of the job,” Jackie thought.  Still, “22 and stupid,” Jackie said she worked her way into some news assignments, proving she could compete with the big boys.  Next stop: Chattanooga.

WTVC Channel 9 needed a reporter, and Jackie knocked on news director Gil Norwood’s door.  “He said he’d take a chance on me,” she said.  “At first he wanted to take it easy on me, so he gave me the girl stories, you know, the softer stuff.  The stories that wouldn’t get my hands dirty.  I had to be assertive, I told him to treat me like everybody else.  Pretty soon I was out covering fires and wrecks and drownings, you name it.  It was still a man’s game.  They were probably paying me about half of what the guys were getting, but hey, I was poor, I was glad to have a job.”

Jackie Schulten at WTVC 1975

Plus, to Jackie’s surprise, the atmosphere wasn’t all that bad.  “They were nice to me,” she said of her co-workers.  “They gave me, a young inexperienced woman, the keys to a 1973 Ford Crown Victoria with the police package, so I started chasing news.  I had the heavy Bell & Howell 16mm film camera with the hand-held light, so I shot the film, did the interviews and wrote the story.”  As for the newsmakers themselves, they were the least of her problems.  “I was an oddity,” she said.  “They loved me.  The police officers would see me in the crowd of reporters, and I guess I stood out.  They were real sweet.  They’d say, hey little lady, is there anything else you need?  I think it worked to my advantage!”

During her two years at WTVC, she began to get noticed by viewers too.  The station started giving her more high-profile assignments, like the co-hosting job on the annual March of Dimes telethon, a 20-hour live show from Memorial Auditorium.  About that time, WRCB Channel 3 was ready to shake up the anchor desk.  The late Mort Lloyd had switched to WDEF five years earlier, and Channel 3’s ratings had not recovered.  A few stations around the country were beginning to put a female behind the anchor desk, but it had not yet happened in Chattanooga.  Now seemed to be a good time.

Ad for WRCB 1975-76 anchor team: Jackie, Jerry and Neal

In late 1975, with little of the fanfare that would accompany such a bold move today, WRCB hired Jackie away from the competition and installed her at the anchor desk.  She doesn’t remember any of the angst that new anchor “Veronica Corningstone” endured from Ron Burgundy and his merry men in the movies.  Nor was there any scandal or romance.  She just did her job, continuing to cover stories while sharing the anchor desk with first Jerry Wilson and later Al Warlick.  Much like the NBC “Today” show of that time, the female half of the team was not quite a full partner.  The male opened and closed the newscast, and was clearly in charge.  But it was an important first step, and Jackie is proud to have been Chattanooga’s first anchorwoman.

Within two years, Jackie’s other dream came calling, and she was off to law school.  Doing public relations work by day, driving to Nashville by night, her hard work paid off when she earned her degree from the Nashville School of Law in 1981.  That led to a job in the city attorney’s office, her own private practice, and for the past sixteen years, two terms (as Judge Jacqueline Bolton) in Hamilton County Circuit Court.  “Yes, some days I sit back and watch Cindy Sexton on the news and say, that could’ve been me.  But law is my passion and it has given me a chance to help people in ways that I couldn’t have done in news.”

Judge Jacqueline Bolton, 2013

Plus, just like her old job, she’s broken a few barriers.  “Being a judge used to be a boys club too, you know.”  She’s stepping down at the end of her current term in September, opting not to seek a third term.  “I want to do some traveling with my husband Tom, while I feel good.  I’ve been blessed to have two careers that I’ve loved.  And it’s great to see more women in both of these professions today.”

It’s no longer a rare sight to see a woman on the bench or at the anchor desk in Chattanooga.  Thanks Jackie, and enjoy your retirement.  You helped pave the way for those who have followed.