Her story
About Shawn
A storyteller in service of others — on air, at the foundation table, and in front of a canvas.
The long story
Indianapolis to Washington
I grew up in Indianapolis, in a family that handed me one rule I've never put down: we don't say can't. It was faith and stubbornness in equal measure, and it's the reason a girl from the Midwest ever believed she could tell stories for a living.
My second day on the job was September 11, 2001. There's no on-ramp for a morning like that — you just steady your voice and stay with your neighbors while the world tilts. It taught me early what this work really is: not performing the news, but keeping faith with the people on the other side of the camera.
For nearly three decades I've done that in Washington. Twenty years at Fox 5, from 2001 to 2020, and since 2021 at NBC4, where I anchor News4 at 5 and 11. The desk changed; the promise didn't. Every story is a chance to give someone the truth, and the truth is a kind of gift.
Somewhere in those years I learned that the giving didn't have to stop when the broadcast ended. What started as a clothing swap among friends became The Giving Foundation for Women & Children — a way to hand underserved women and children not just clothes, but a future. Then a canvas found me, and I discovered a third way to tell the truth: in color, in tension, in joy that doesn't need words.
Off the air I'm a wife and a mother of three. My husband and I are raising our children on the same creed I was raised on — that love is something you build, and can't is a word we don't use in this house.
What I carry
The things I keep coming back to
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Art is life
Creativity isn't a hobby set apart from the real work — it's how I process the world and stay whole while doing hard jobs.
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We don't say can't
The family creed. It's gotten me through a first day, a first foundation, a first canvas, and every first since.
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Coloring outside the lines
A multihyphenate life isn't scattered — it's one purpose expressed in more than one medium.
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Every story is a chance to give
Whether it's the news, a scholarship, or a painting, the point is the same: leave someone better than you found them.
The throughline
One act in three mediums
Journalism, philanthropy, and art aren't three careers — they're one act performed three ways. The anchor, the founder, and the artist are all doing the same thing: telling a story until it moves someone to give. That's the whole of it.