By Deborah Shefler
Part of a series celebrating the LWVO's century of service to the Oakland community.
For Betty Ann (1931-2023), volunteering with the League led to a successful career as a TV reporter. “I always thought that if I found time for any organization, it would be the League,” she commented to an interviewer in 1969.
During the 1960s she joined LWVO and took on leadership roles, including president of the board more than once. These activities led to repeated contact with KTVU, currently the Bay Area’s Fox Network outlet, promoting League activities and positions. Before long the station offered her a job. She worked there for 20+ years, from 1971 to 1992, as a political talk show producer and host, and as an investigative reporter. One of her most notable stories was the 1991 Oakland hills fire, a harrowing personal experience in which she lost her own home and almost her life. She retired in 1992, having won three Emmy Awards.
After retiring she embraced her Polynesian roots and became a hula dance instructor, inspiring a love for Hawaiian culture in her students. Founder of the dance troupe Hula Mai — Hawaiian for “come and dance” — the Sonoma Cultural & Fine Arts Commission named her the Sonoma Treasure Artist in 2020.
As a child of seven, she appeared as a Munchkin in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. She also had a small role in a 1937 John Ford film, The Hurricane. Later she followed her yellow brick road to Stanford, where she earned a degree in political science in 1953. Her path then led to a position with the CIA in Washington, DC, where she met her first husband.
Betty Ann raised three boys. She ran for Oakland City Council and lost in a very tight race, the first multi-racial woman to run for office here. In 2020 she put it all together and published her autobiography, The Munchkin Diary: My Personal Yellow Brick Road.
Comments