Fanny Salmon: The places I call home

Fanny Salmon came to study at the University of Kentucky during the 1993-1994 school year.  One year was not enough, and she ended up staying at UK until the spring of 1995. After working for WTVQ in Lexington and Equidia in France, she started freelancing, covering major thoroughbred races around the world. She recently created her own consulting and digital media company, Full Field Agency. 

The places I call home

I knew right from the start, as we drove past the giant green paddocks, the horses and the stonewalls, nothing about this felt foreign. I came as an exchange student to the University of Kentucky, but I was never a foreigner, a novelty at times, maybe...

With Jim Amato and Frederique in 1993. 

WTVQ Bon Voyage Party in 1997.

I was met with so much warmth and kindness that the experience left an imprint still guiding my behavior to this day.

This was to be my year away from home, my chance to experiment before returning to France where a career in teaching awaited. I came from a family of teachers deeply rooted in Deauville where my grand-parents arrived as “yearlings” and where my mother was born. We lived wherever my mother taught but Deauville was always my anchor. It was where I spent most of my holidays, catching the horse bug early on; where I started binge-watching movies at the American Film Festival learning enough English to cruise through High School.

Teachers spent the following two years bringing me down to earth, beating some humility and proper in English into me. So much so that by the time I landed in Kentucky, I was told I “sounded like book.”

I’d reassured my kins by completing a bachelor’s degree in France before flying off, but Kentucky had been on my mind.  Ever since Anne d’Ornano and Jacques Valentin first encouraged me to apply through to the Sister Cities Student exchange program. Deep down, I had a dream... to be a turf writer. The French in me understood harboring such a dream was highly unrealistic. Little did I know...

On my second week at UK, a professor came to ask me why I had not come to his office yet.

“I had no idea, was I supposed to?”, I replied.

He went on to question me about my motivation for taking his Public Relations and Advertising classes.

I answered I had 2 semesters and meant to learn as much as I could from UK’s School of Journalism and Communications.

"But why?" he asked.  "And why here in Kentucky?"

I came clean and confessed. My obsession with racing and breeding inspired him.

"Do you know we have advertising agencies specializing in that field here in Lexington? You should knock on their doors, ask for an internship." 

The French in me was freaking out.  "Oh no, I couldn’t!"

"Why not? What’s the worst thing that can happen?" he said.  

"I could fail and disappoint everyone," I admitted.  

"So what? You’ll just get back on the plane and everyone will get over it."

That was the most liberating statement I had ever heard! A real turning point in my life.

The next one came the following semester when my broadcasting teacher sidetracked me. Professor David Dick introduced me to guest speaker Michael Castengera, then News Director at WTVQ, as “his next intern.” Professor Dick was grinning from ear to ear. He knew I wanted to work in print, “and print only!”, I had told him repeatedly. I agreed to do the internship to prove him wrong, “TV was not for me”. Within a month, I was hired as a video tape editor. I kept working at WTVQ while spending another year at UK and my one-year escape from reality turned into a four-year life-changing experience. I was lucky to meet lifelong friends and mentors along the way.

First day as a tape editor.

WTVQs Bowling Alley Newsroom

David Dick - the man to blame for my career in TV.

I was producing the Newschannel 36’s 11 at 11 newscast when I was offered a job at the French Racing Channel. I packed my bags in March of 1997 but never really left Lexington.

I have been lucky to make a career traveling around the world to report on horse racing. I became used to living out of suitcases, unable to claim 6 month and a day in any country. “When someone asks me, where are you from?” I find it hard to pick between the two places I call home.

In Deauville, coming full circle with interviews of Toby Maguire and Gary Ross. 

In LA, catching up with Kenny Rice and Sky Yancey. 

Live for HRTV Breeders Cup Week.

Working for Equidia with the 2008 French Derby winners.  

With John Calipari while reporting the Breeders Cup International Show. 

I am so grateful for the opportunity granted by the Sister Cities, for the friendships built along the way, the families who took me in, the joys we shared, the tears we cried, the tornado watches and the ice storms we weathered, the mornings on the back side, the crepes we flipped and the rocks we climbed.

I am a proud Norman and I carry Kentucky with me everywhere I go, setting my alarm clock at insane times during March Madness. Come to think of it, this may be one of the few things which truly felt foreign on my first year. Come on, a whole city dressed in blue and white? The French in me first found it strange, the Kentuckian in me gets it. I took my sister Pauline (a decent basketball player, unlike me) to Big Blue Madness one year. She heard John Calipari speak and turned to me with a puzzled look.

"Is this a coach or a preacher?"

I laughed. That was the French in her speaking, but there is a Kentuckian growing in there too. It is hard to resist the infectious hospitality.

Go Big Blue with my sister Pauline.

 Years after being told I sounded like a book, a European colleague of mine insisted I sounded like a Redneck. Strange though it may sound, it did not come as an insult. This twang tends to fade away when I tired and spent too much time on the road, but “I am darn proud of it!” I could never really leave and because deep down I feel like I belong.

I’ll never forget the day I moved into my first apartment in Lexington. My friend Dana Ross came to help. I had met Dana at Saybrook advertising -yes, the stubborn French did follow Professor Roth’s advice and interned at an advertising agency. Dana’s car was packed to the roof. “I thought you could use some extra dishes and linens,” she said as she unpacked box after box. I couldn’t  believe it, we’d only known each other for a couple of months. With a smile, she taught me about friendship, “you’ll do the same for someone one day”  and I did.

Dana Ross, the life long friend who taught me about friendship.