Tiffany Sisson on air

If you watch local TV at all, it's very likely you've seen Tiffany Sisson's face.

For nine years she's been an on-air personality at KFVS-12 in Cape Girardeau, reporting stories and anchoring newscasts. She used to pull those dreaded early hours for work on "The Breakfast Show," but now she gets the distinction of airing the noon news, making her a lunchtime pal for thousands.

Sisson sat down with OFF magazine to talk about local celebrity, integrity in reporting the news and her dull, unglamorous life outside the TV studio. She may be on TV, but she's as normal as anybody.

Are you a local native?

I'm from here, this is my hometown. My family lives about 30 minutes from here. I'm a country girl.

I live on a farm, I've driven a combine, a tractor. My grandpa used to be a farmer.

How much work goes into making a news story for the TV news?

Obviously the toughest part is setting it up. You have an idea, you know when generate these ideas in our morning story meeting, and then it's a great idea on paper, then you got to go make it work.

For example, yesterday (March 22) I did a story about women and guns. And I want to personalize this story, but the problem is I don't know any gun-toting women. So I have to track someone down, and I was looking for a particular type of woman. I wanted someone who was new to it.

I wanted to know why she got into it.

I probably called about 10 different places. You can probably spend an hour and a half setting up your story.

Then you have to think about how you're going to visually represent this story.

Logistically it can take about 6 hours, from start to finish, from the time we actually get our story idea to the time our viewer actually sees that story on the newscast.

Is your job glamorous?

It's pretty much a philosophy in the business, if you last five years then you're pretty much going to be a mainstay in it.

Those people who get into the business for the glamor of it are quickly weeded out. They realize that it's not worth it. And after a while, I think any journalist who's worth their salt doesn't really care as much about their face being seen as about their hard work being seen.

If you only see me for five seconds, I'm cool with that. I want you to see the hard work I've put in, and I think any journalist would probably tell you that.

Given that your face is on the TV, when you go out grocery shopping do people bug you?

I don't like to say "bug." (laughs)

You know what you're getting into, you know that you're going to be in the public eye, and if you don't think you can deal with it, then, as we always say, "This is news. If you can't deal with it, go sell shoes."

It's tough for me because I'm a very private person, so sometimes I would like to just go to the grocery store and buy a gallon of milk and go home. But people notice you, and I still to this day can't get my head around why anybody would want to speak to me or get my autograph or get a picture with me for that matter, but I can understand it. I can relate.

I'm just doing my job, my job just puts me on television.

Sure you wish you could just go in and get a gallon of milk, but these people are my bread and butter. If they don't like me, I don't have a job. So you can't be rude. My job doesn't stop when I walk out the door.

I'm always representing KFVS. They want to talk about KFVS. They want to know about Jeff Cunningham's baby, Mary Maloney's boys.

Do you have kids?

I have three kids, but I didn't birth them. I have a 15-year-old sister, and I have two dogs.

Those are my kids. My mother passed away in August, so I now raise my 15-year-old sisters, and I have two puppies.

Those are my three babies, thankfully I only clean up crap after two of them.

A lot of people might think your life outside of work is glamorous, with a lot of socializing. Is that the case?

I laughed when you asked to interview me, it's embarrassing, really.

My life's pretty boring.

I get here, I do that dance we do here, then I get out of here and I go home, feed and water the dogs, wash the day off, see how my sister's day went, then I get ready for bed.

Lately I've been watching "The Sopranos." When the season premiere kicked off, I'm watching the news and everybody's excited about it, and I hadn't seen episode one.

My life's pretty pathetic.