Reginald Hardwick 0:00
From Illinois Public Media News, I’m Reginald Hardwick. For the last three years, a warm and informative voice has helped us get our days started.
Kimberly Schofield 0:08
(sound from another newscast) From Illinois Public Media News, I’m Kimberly Schofield. This is Morning Edition. Good morning. Today is Wednesday…
Hardwick 0:14
But we have some bittersweet news to report. We’re sad to announce that Kimberly Schofield will be leaving Morning Edition, and Illinois Public Media. The great news is she’ll still be here in Central Illinois, so stay tuned for that. Kimberly is in the studio with me now. What’s going on?
Schofield 0:31
Yes, Reginald, I will still be in the area. I’m going to go over to the Champaign County Humane Society.
Hardwick 0:38
We, of course, will miss you. You started as an all things considered host before we promoted you to the Morning Edition position, and you’ve been here through heat waves and snow storms and reporting election results the day after and school closings. Are there any interviews or stories that stick out to you over the last three years?
Schofield 0:57
I had three. The very first one that I did was while I was the all things considered host, and you, Reginald, encouraged me to actually interview the composer of Our Planet. The conversation just sounds very, very personal and still casual, but still really informative and professional.
Steven Price 1:12
The thing that’s really struck me is what a wonderful experience it is to share with other people. You know, the whole point of the show is really that we’re all in it together. We all share this place. It’s our home.
Schofield 1:23
The conversation with Branford Marsalis was over 40 minutes long, and he had his video up, and he was just had his headphones in, and he was drinking Coke, and was laying back on the couch, and walking through his house, and it was just so fun.
Branford Marsalis 1:40
I always knew I wanted to play music, but I never thought that I’d become a professional musician. That was mostly Wynton, who fervently believed he was going to go to New York and shock the world, and he pretty much did. I’m a year older than him. So, when I graduated from high school, I went to a historically black college in Louisiana, Southern University, and I marched in the band, and I was studying to become a history teacher, and I was just gonna teach history and play with a, like, a wedding band.
Schofield 2:07
The other one is Zakir Hussain, who passed away recently. When did you yourself recognize that music was something that you wanted to pursue?
Zakir Hussain 2:19
I guess it was through my need to want to be connected to my father that I realized that the only way to do that is to make sure that our paths are musically aligned, and I knew that that was the way to inspire him to want to give me a second look, because for him music was everything.
Hardwick 2:41
Kimberly has incredible energy. She’s a marathon runner, and you may have seen her in local productions of Gypsy Rose or Rent the Musical, where she’s a regular actor and singer. Can people still see you in local productions?
Schofield 2:55
Yes, people sure can. I am going to be in Ragtime next, which is going to be with CUTC at the Virginia Theater, that’s at the end of July and beginning of August.
Hardwick 3:05
Why are you so involved in the local productions?
Schofield 3:09
[I] did a couple of plays in high school, and I did choir for a year and a half or so, but then in college I joined a jazz acappella group, and I spent the majority of my time in the Music building on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, in the Music Building. People thought I was a music major because of it, and I dedicated so much time and energy to that group, no strings attached. [I] really found a lot of people who were very diverse and had very different skill sets and very different voices in that community, but we all got along, and we all appreciated the music and the art and the work that goes into it. And after graduating, I was bartending, because I’ve done a million jobs in the area, and one of the comedians who would come to open mic night asked if I was interested in auditioning for a play at the Station Theater. And it was ‘She Kills Monsters’ and I said ‘yes’ and I got in it and I have never stopped. And when I am on stage or performing, it just feels like home to me. It reminds me of my grandmother who was the closest thing to a performer that I think I had in such an intimate relationship.
Hardwick 4:17
[Is there] anything people would be surprised to know about getting up and coming in here at five in the morning to prepare for the newscast five days a week?
Schofield 4:27
I think that one thing that might surprise people is that I am the only person in here in the mornings. We have other shows, like The 21st Show, has producers. There are some people who think that I’m in here playing music only, or doing something like a radio DJ. And some people think that the entire thing is pre-recorded, and it’s not. It’s all live. It is a huge team effort of our reporters and our engineers, and then people who work in the operations department, all coming together to prepare for just a chunk of time in the morning. I also have to warm up my voice in the morning. I choose to warm up my voice in the morning. I should say, because naturally the speaking voice is usually over the course of a day, just having casual conversation. But for me, I haven’t spoken to anybody until I get here, so there are some gentle vocal warm-ups that I will do sometimes on the way in here.
Hardwick 5:24
We also know you love animals, so tell us about your new role at the Champaign County Humane Society.
Schofield 5:31
Yes, I will. I love animals, and I know you have an animal from the Champaign County Humane Studies. Sam,
Hardwick 5:36
Sam, you watched when I first got him.
Schofield 1 5:38
I did, I did, and I love him. He’s a great dog. In the past, foster animals would primarily be if they were too young to go up for adoption, or if they had a medical issue, and they needed to just get better before they came back to the shelter. This program is still being developed. This new program that I will be ahead of, but it will be more geared toward working with taking a dog out for dogs day out, for example, during the day, and getting animals possibly to go into a home to see if it’s a foster to adopt option. There are other shelters that have done this before. This, though, is going to be a program that is going to be kind of built as we go. Volunteers, you have to get training and everything too, so we’re not just kind of sending animals out into the world or anything without checking in on people or the animals, but we’re hoping that it’ll be a nice opportunity for animals to be adopted and to get some more enrichment than just being in the Humane Society. Because as much as the Humane Society does, the shelter is still a strange environment for any animal, because it’s not home. So, any opportunity for them to get that enrichment or get any more knowledge about the world, or to learn new things, we love to do.
Hardwick 6:55
That was our Morning Edition host, Kimberly Schofield. You can listen to her until June 5 on Morning Edition, which is available on WILL-AM 580, weekdays from 5 to 9am; and on Illinois Classical from 6 to 9am; and Illinois Soul FM 101.1 from 6 to 8am. Kimberly, don’t be a stranger.
Schofield 1 7:15
I will not be a stranger. You’ll hear my voice, I’m sure, somewhere. Thanks so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai