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So nearly a decade after that fateful first coin toss, she'd find herself with a
gamble of different kind: trading an extensive marketing career to take the helm of the
Grand Prairie Daily News, a Belo Corp. organization.
When Labbe walked into her first newsroom, it was a bit of a shock. She'd dug
into the community through Leadership Arlington and volunteerism - that's how she got
to know the person suggested she apply to become the editor of the Grand Prairie Daily
News, she explains.
"I looked at him like he had a duck on his head, because I was like, 'Wait a
minute, I've never worked at the newspaper.' "
As a college student at Kansas University, she'd studied public relations and
didn't spend a day at the college newspaper, she said. She got the editor job in 1988
because she knew the issues and the people, and had an instinct for community and hard
work instilled by her family.
"I stumbled into journalism," she admits, and she loved it. After four years in
Grand Prairie, Labbe was tapped to helm the Arlington Daily News, Belo's ammunition
in the battle with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for Arlington readership. Those were the
days, she explains with animation, when competition reigned. Her understanding of the
audience and tough issues facing North Texas in the late 1980s and early 1990s helped
make her an easy target for her competitor's attention. After a short courtship, Labbe was
hired to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as its editorial page director in the Arlington
newsroom. In doing so, she became the first full-time female editorial writer in the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram's history, which dates back to 1906.
If editors were attempting to bring a gentler approach to the editorial board, in
Labbe's words, "they picked the wrong gal." A staunch conservative, she guided and
instigated debate on formative local and states issues- fire and police pensions,
homeless initiatives and the death penalty.
Her personal life has influenced her perspective on those important issues, she
says. She grew up with her twin brother and older sister and a hard-working mother who
insisted her children grow up able to take care of themselves. Widowed twice as a young
woman, Labbe's mother instilled a fierce sense of service and independence.
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