Oral History Interview with Laura Miller, October 30, 2014 Page: 2 of 25
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Laura: Yeah, and mostly because, and I tell this story because people always ask me,
"You always seem to have such a strong sense of outrage about things, and that's why
you were a crusading journalist, and that's why you ran for office. Where does that come
from?" And I have told this story once or twice, but I became an outraged human because
when I was in middle school, in that period, my dad had moved to New York in retailing,
and my parents had divorced. It was a very bad time, my mother took the divorce very
poorly, and became quite sick. I remember one day, someone had shown up at our house.
The one thing that we had of value in our whole house was a stamp collection that my
father's grandfather had started at the turn of the century, and this was just a knockout
stamp collection. Unbelievable. I remember it very clearly. I remember we kept it at the
bottom of a trunk in the basement. So unbeknownst to me, my mother had decided that
she wanted to know what the stamp collection was worth, so some guy comes over. I'm
11, my brother is nine, my sister is three. The guy comes over. We all sit in the living
room with my mother. He looks at the stamp collection, and he says, "You know, I just
don't know how much this is worth. I am just going to have to take it and have it
evaluated, and I'll bring it back." And even at 11I thought, "This is not cool. This is not
a good idea." So he took the stamp collection, and he never came back. So for years I had
nightmares about trying to find his red truck. I knew he couldn't be far.
Chase: Hunt that man down.
Laura: Hunt that man down. And to this day, if I could find that man, he would know my
wrath.
Chase: So it must have been worth quite a bit then?
Laura: Oh it was worth a lot. It was a great, beautiful, perfect stamp collection. Just
perfect. So anyway, that's where I get my outrage.
Chase: So out of this, you go to high school and you are the editor of the yearbook, the
school newspaper and the literary review of your high school.
Laura: Trifecta
Chase: Yeah. Well most high schools, at least where I went, don't have a literary review
anymore, but we still have a yearbook and newspaper. But to be the editor of all three,
how did that go about?
Laura: I was just on fire. I was a tigress. I mean, the good thing about high school is that
I did all of the journalism stuff that I wanted to do, and the bad thing was that, I am the
first one to graduate from college in my family, so there wasn't a big education push. So
when I got to high school, and I was doing all of the journalism, I started out as a straight
A, great student. And then freshman year, I had long hair, braces and wireframe glasses,
so I had this clash about my face, and I got everything cut off and got contacts in my
sophomore year. I had a physics teacher named Mr. Heinzer. I didn't like physics, so Mr.
Heinzer pulled me over one day and said, "You know, if I were you, I would just give up
on the science thing. Have a good time with socializing. Find a husband. Get married.
You're not the type of person who needs to be pursuing a heavy academic plan."
Chase: What year was this?
Laura: Sophomore year of high school. Yeah, great guy. He said, "Just sit in the back
and talk to the boys, and I'll make sure you pass."
Chase: This is like the late 70s?
Laura: Yeah, late '74. So I did exactly what he told me to do, because, you know, he was
a teacher. Instead of going to Northwestern for journalism, where I should have gone, I
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Carter, Chase & Miller, Laura. Oral History Interview with Laura Miller, October 30, 2014, text, October 30, 2014; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth586995/m1/2/?rotate=270: accessed June 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism.