in Indianapolis, Pauley placed first in the Girls' Extemporaneous Speaking division of the National Forensic League in Indiana. After graduating from high school in 1968, Pauley attended Indiana University, majoring in political science. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma where she sang with the sorority jug band, the Kappa Pickers. She graduated from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.A. in Political Science in 1972. After three years at WISH-TV, in 1975, Pauley joined veteran anchor Floyd Kalber at NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV to become Chicago's first woman co-anchor on a major evening newscast, marking the beginning of her career with NBC. Barely ten months later, Pauley was chosen to replace Barbara Walters on the Today show. Career Today Pauley co-hosted the Today show from 1976 to December 29, 1989; first with Tom Brokaw from 1976 to December 1981 and then with Bryant Gumbel beginning January 4, 1982. She also anchored the Sunday edition of NBC Nightly News from 1980 to 1982; and often substituted for the weekend editions 1996-1999. Following in the footsteps of the first female co-anchor of the show, Barbara Walters, she became a symbol for professional women, and more specifically, female journalists. In 1983, after giving birth to twins following a very public pregnancy, Pauley became a role model to working mothers. In her autobiography, And So It Goes, Pauley's colleague Linda Ellerbee wrote, "She [Pauley] is what I want to be when I grow up." The Detroit Free Press wrote on September 27, 1989, that Jane Pauley in some ways represents the best of women in television, that she never took it too seriously, that she knew the difference between television and real life, and that her family counted more than her ratings. 1989 brought big changes to Today when news reader Deborah Norville was given a larger role in the two hour broadcast. Speculation in the media implied that NBC executives were easing Pauley out to advance the younger NBC newscaster. As Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote at the time, watching Ms. Pauley, Ms. Norville, and co-anchor Bryant Gumbel on the set together "is like looking at a broken marriage with the home-wrecker right there on the premises." Pauley, who had been contemplating a change, hoping to spend more time with her three children, asked to settle her contract, but NBC declined. In October 1989, after prolonged negotiations, Pauley announced that, after