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Judy Jordan who got that anchor position in the evening news slot at my station, which then was owned
by the Times Herald. Times Herald owned KRLD, which was right across the street from us. And I had
lunch with her the day I knew there were going to make the announcement. And later that day they
gave her the job as an anchor for the evening news. So, that is a great opportunity for all young women
who are interested. There are a lot of behind the scenes. If you are interested in editing, there's always
an opportunity for that kind of work. But there are definite challenges. I just would say to you, "Feel
your way. Keep your options open. Grab any chance." When I was going along there, journalism was not
paid and women were especially not paid and we didn't talk about money. And you must talk about
money. Because your starting salary will accrue and build on what you start with. In my day, we didn't
know that we could do that. I was at the point of retirement before I learned the sports editor did and
he has headed a staff of five and I headed a staff of 11. He put out five sections a week; I put out seven
and a half. But those were different days.
Guzman: What are some of the daily struggles you think you faced as far as news content, working with
editors, being one of the few women in a male-dominated industry?
Castleberry: In my day, these are challenges you will not have to face to the extent today, but in my day,
to have a woman in a field of leadership in journalism was anomaly. We just weren't there. And we
weren't visible, and our place was at home in the kitchen, rearing children. I cannot tell you how much
pressure I faced both in my private life and in my public life. If I had not been married to the man who
said, "Do anything you want to do and I'll help you," I couldn't have done anything. Because my male
editors, they're sweethearts, judged all women by their wives. And their wives were members of the
junior league, and the Dallas Women's Club, and they shopped, they played golf, and they looked
beautiful, and they played bridge, and they were volunteers in the community. Many of them were
smart enough to have run General Electric, but they were married to men who they supported and that
was their career. I would say that their husbands, of course, evaluated women by their wives. And so my
job was to survive in spite of odd, so I had the challenge at work, being the only woman in the field of
responsibility. I was the first woman on the Times Herald editorial board and I believe the only woman in
the Southwest to be on an editorial board unless she had inherited the paper and those were small
papers. So, I was one of the first women in the field of journalistic leadership in the Southwest. And that
was lonely because there was nowhere for me to go and my male editors did not know how to deal with
me. I had only one male editor who supported me to the Nth degree and I think it probably hampered his
career because he was always sticking up for what I was doing, remember he had a professional wife
and it makes all the difference in the world. So, I would say to you, look for a job, if you are gonna have a
male boss and I hope you don't, if you're gonna have a male boss, look for someone whose wife is a
professional woman. It makes all the difference in the world in what you get at home. At home, I had
the total support of my husband but not the total support of the community. And at church, I remember
one man, he was a psychiatrist, no, he was a psychologist, and his wife had been a psychologist. And he
told me, he said, "Well, my wife was a professional too up until we had children. But she knew where
her role was."
And I had two brothers, and the older of my two brothers was a very traditional male, who said to me,
"You know if you're going to insist on going to work every day, you're gonna raise five children of