Tech Topics - Spring 2009 - (Page 27) BURDELL & FRIENDS Whatever Happened to Miss Atlanta? Carol Minn Vacca reports on life after winning crown By Kimberly Link-Wills R eigning as Miss Atlanta in 1996 brought unique opportunities to preside over ceremonies and celebrations associated with the Summer Olympics. Tech student Carol Minn got that opportunity when she won the crown. Although she’s gone from Atlanta’s stage, Carol Minn Vacca, IntA 97, is a television fixture in Florida, where she is a news reporter and fill-in anchor for Bay News 9 in St. Petersburg, which covers the entire Tampa Bay area. Instead of carrying a bouquet of roses, Minn Vacca breezes into a hotel lobby in Tampa toting a bag from which her puppy, Bianca, peeks its head. Nary a bark comes from the dog carrier as Minn Vacca discusses her journey from the pageant stage to the TV station newsroom. Minn Vacca, who worked on former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes’ campaign staff after graduating from Tech, earned a law degree from Emory University in the spring of 2001 and thought she had her life mapped out. “I was going to sit for the bar at the end of July,” she said, and she took a break from studying to accompany a friend attending an Asian-American journalism conference in California. While mingling at a reception, Minn Vacca was approached by a vice president for Gannett who asked for her resume. She laughed and explained she wasn’t a journalist. He gave Minn Vacca his card and encouraged her to send him a resume anyway. On a whim, she did. Within days, she was hired as an associate producer at the Macon, Ga., station WMAZ. “I didn’t even know the lingo,” she said, laughing, in hindsight, about those early days in television. Soon after joining the station, Minn Vacca was put on the air. Her first live report took place outside a courthouse, where she was to explain what was happening during a trial being conducted inside. She pulled out all the legalese she’d learned at Emory. “I talked for five minutes,” said Minn Vacca, who thought she’d done a great job of chronicling the proceedings. Instead, she was called out on the carpet by the station heads. “They said, ‘You can’t do that again,’” Minn Vacca recalled, acknowledging she may have lost some of the audience with her extensive legal rambling. Still, within a few months of her arrival, Minn Vacca was awarded a twoyear contract and promoted to weekday morning and noon anchor. After honing her newfound newscasting skills and toning down her courtroom-style speechmaking, Minn Vacca moved on to WHAS TV in Louisville, Ky., a bigger market than Macon. She stayed there for two years as a reporter and weekend anchor before moving to the even bigger Tampa TV market in 2006. Georgia Tech, Minn Vacca said, prepared her for any reporting assignment thrown her way. “It was so cutthroat. I had always been the smart kid in class,” then was just one of thousands of smart kids at Tech, she said. “It freaked me out.” But Minn Vacca soon found her footing. She formed good study habits and worked to stand out on campus. “I love challenges,” she said. Competing in pageants was just another challenge. A native of Seoul, South Korea, Minn Vacca immigrated to Marietta, Ga., with her parents and brother when she was 6. While a 16-year-old student at Wheeler High School, she competed in her first pageant — and won. Stage fright wasn’t a consideration. An accomplished pianist used to public Carol Minn Vacca, IntA 97, first was featured in TECH TOPICS when she won the Miss Atlanta pageant in 1996. performances, Minn Vacca had the talent portion nailed. And her mother reminded her that she had no trouble addressing an audience. In first grade, Minn Vacca climbed atop her desk and demanded that her classmates admire her new dress. After winning the title of Cobb County Junior Miss, Minn Vacca went on to become a preliminary winner in the Georgia Junior Miss contest and later won the swimsuit competition and the second runner-up prize in the Miss Cobb County pageant. In addition to being named Miss Atlanta while she was a Tech student, Minn Vacca was a cheerleader, member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority, a student assistant at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and a volunteer with the Cool Girls Program. Minn Vacca said she remembered singing instead of playing the piano in the Miss Atlanta competition but couldn’t put her finger on the song. The Technique reported shortly after Minn Vacca was crowned that she sang “Stuff Like That There” from the movie For the Boys. The campus newspaper also said Minn Vacca “presented a platform targeted at promoting excellence among inner-city youth.” These days, Minn Vacca has little time for reminiscing with her hectic schedule as a full-time reporter and fill-in anchor at Bay News 9. Her newlywed husband, Albert Vacca, a pilot, also is constantly on the go. The desire to maintain a more routine schedule and start a family helped Minn Vacca reach the decision that now is the time to return to Atlanta and finally sit for the bar exam and begin a law career. The Vaccas plan to make that move after her contract with Bay 9 News expires in April. TechTopics | Spring 2009 27
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