One day in 1973 a 37-year-old former State Department secretary with no radio experience walked into a public radio station in Washington DC to be a volunteer.
Within six years she was on the air, and soon after that Diane Rehm was given her own talk show. And for the next 32 years Rehm was a popular fixture on radio not just in the nation’s capital, but across the country, syndicated by public radio.
But in her early 60s Rehm faced a serious health challenge, a vocal cord disorder that threatened to silence her familiar voice. Ultimately she found the treatment that allowed her to continue her career.
In 1999 Diane Rehm wrote a long-awaited autobiography called Finding My Voice, and the woman who had spent years interviewing the famous and the powerful now became the interviewee herself .
She and I talked about her book one day in the fall of 1999.
So here now, from 1999 Diane Rehm
Diane Rehm is 88 now. She still hosts a weekly podcast.