By Barbara Petty

Vanna Fox

Vanna Fox
For the most part, people do not look like they sound. And we have all had similar experiences – meeting someone face-to-face whom we previously only had heard. Or when we hear our own voice on a tape recorder, we are most often quite surprised.

Such was not the case when I met Vanna Fox, the golden voice that guides us through the traffic Monday through Friday on Mix 101.5, WRAL-FM radio. Vanna does look the same as she sounds: at 51 she is attractive, charming, and vivacious. Traffic queen for nearly eight years, Vanna has “the best job in the world.” She spends her mornings acting as a sidekick for Bill & Sherry in the Morning. Bill Jordan and Sheri Logan are co-hosts for the Triangle’s most popular morning show, and they had been working as a duo until a freak snow-storm brought Vanna into the studio in 2002.

“I had been reporting the traffic from the air for over three years, when a late winter storm grounded the plane,” explains Fox. “The producer suggested that I report the traffic from the studio, and given the technology, it was completely feasible.”Something other than traffic reports materialized from that event. It was evident from the beginning that this trio “fit.” The chemistry between the personalities created something akin to Whoopie, Billie and Robin. “Sometimes all I do is just laugh,” says Vanna. “Sometime Sheri and I gang up on Bill; other times I help Bill reel Sheri in!” Topics range from pop culture to family, to politics, to complete irreverence. No matter, this top-rated show has a loyal listening audience. “And oftentimes, what the listener doesn’t hear is where the real hysteria occurs,” smiles Vanna.

Becoming a traffic reporter was not a career path Vanna set out to follow. Hindsight, however, reveals her past experiences were perfect training. Even as a child Vanna was a performer. “My family used to have to pull me down from the coffee table where I would sing and sing.” Not to be deterred, she majored in Music Education at Western Carolina University, graduating in 1978. After graduation, Vanna did work semi-professionally – singing jingles, doing voiceovers, making pre-recorded telephone answering messages, and a bit of acting. “I was a dancer in the large group scenes in The Age of Innocence. And I remember Daniel Day Lewis being funny and willing to cut it up with the other cast members,” Vanna reminisces. “I was a stand-in for Jo-Beth Williams while making the TV pilot The Client. I was the next-door neighbor to Donald Sutherland and Diane Lane in The Oldest Living Confederate Woman Tells All. And I worked with Dennis Leary in The Neon Bible. He was also very friendly and polite.”

The antics never stop on the Morning Show. From left to right: Vanna Fox, Sheri Logan, Bill Jordan, and executive producer Wayne Michaels.

Working part-time as a telemarketer for the North Carolina Symphony, she was trying to sell symphony tickets to the gentleman on the phone. Apparently taken with her voice, out of the blue this stranger asks Vanna if she wants to be on the radio. “Come to find out,” says Vanna, “This man was the owner of Traffic Patrol, the company that provided traffic reporting services to the radio station. In addition, they had been looking for a woman in my demographic for several months who would be willing to jump into an airplane at 4:00 in the morning!” This man had no idea that Vanna had been working in the industry for several years, and when she sent them her demo tape, they nearly hired her on the spot.

Vanna has not abandoned her love of singing and music. She works part-time with husband David Mellnik, Minister of Music at Greenwood Forest, a cooperative Baptist church in Cary. Vanna and David have been married for 10 years in March, and they share more than their love of music. ”We were actually childhood sweethearts,” Vanna muses. “We played in the marching band, and on the school bus, he would tie my hair to the seat.” Definitely love. Fate moved them apart to different colleges and different spouses when fate would bring them back together at a high school reunion. Married a short time later, Vanna, unable to have children herself, devoted herself to David’s girls Margaret and Sarah. “But not like a Mom,” she adds. “They already had a great Mom, and didn’t need another. I was more like the favorite aunt.”

Vanna has also devoted herself to some other children as well – the children at Duke Children’s Hospital. “My husband believes this is why I found the job at MIX. God gave me this job so I could become involved with Duke.” Every year, MIX 101.5 WRAL-FM hosts the Radiothon for Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center, a three-day event, lasting 101.5 hours straight. Listeners call in to make pledges; last year’s event raised $920,000.

“Those that live in the Triangle perhaps take for granted, or do not realize the level of medical facilities we have right here,” Vanna states. “People travel from across the country or from around the world for treatment at the facility that is right down the street.”

“The thing that constantly impresses me about Duke is the staff,” she continues. “For them, it is not a job, it’s a lifestyle. The way they work with the children and communicate with the parents, it’s humbling really.”