FRUIT HEIGHTS–Allison Barlow Hess has really had three careers–as a television news reporter, a college professor and a public relations director at Weber State University. She received the WSU Alumni Association’s H. Aldous Dixon Award in March for her distinguished service to the university just before she retired in April. With each of her professional journeys, she’s had a similar goal–to tell a story.

“I love journalism and I love Weber State,” she said. “I believe in its mission and its students. Communication is the common ingredient to what I did in the newsroom, the classroom and in the university’s public relations department. I’ve been blessed to work in all three disciplines.”

Hess grew up just a mile from her current home in Fruit Heights. She spent most of her childhood living in Layton before at age 12 she moved with her family to Kaysville. Her grandfather was I. Haven Barlow, cousin to longtime Davis County elected official Haven J. Barlow.

“It drove the mailman crazy with two ‘Haven Barlows’ living so close together,” she recalled. “Haven Barlow was the well known, political one, while I. Haven was the lesser known ecclesiastical one. They shared a good laugh over that.”

She graduated from Davis High School in 1978. Her future husband Howard Hess was a classmate and on the debate team, but they didn’t start dating until after he returned from an LDS mission. They will celebrate their 40th anniversary in November.

She attended and graduated from BYU with a degree in broadcasting, then interned for a summer in Washington, D.C.

“That made for some amazing memories–working with senators and congressmen, seeing all the workings of the federal government,” she said. “Once I returned to Utah, I saw an ad that KSL was in need of an assignment desk editor, so I started there. I began doing a gardening series with USU Extension on the noon news–my first on-air job. When KSL started a show called Prime Time Access, it created space in the newsroom for a ‘cub’ reporter, so I worked for 10 years at KSL, primarily in the agriculture beat.”

By then, the couple had two young boys (they have three sons in total), and she was looking for another opportunity that didn’t tie up so many days, nights and weekends. She met Larry Stahle, long-time journalism professor at Weber State. The university was seeking an adjunct professor. She taught one of Stahle’s journalism classes, “and I guess I passed, because I was hired. The school encouraged me to get my Masters degree, which I did, and they brought me on as a tenured instructor specialist, and eventually a professor. I became advisor to the student radio station for a year, then advisor to The Signpost, our student newspaper, for 10 years.”

Hess said she loved teaching, mentoring students as they rose through the system and moved into professional roles. One of her students, Salt Lake Tribune writer Jessica Miller, was part of the Trib team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its investigation of rapes at Utah colleges.

In 2010, Hess switched from professor to director of the university’s public relations, freeing up a little more time for her family. She also wanted to convey a message about the inclusiveness of the school.

“Weber State welcomes everyone–anyone can come to Weber State and have a chance,” she said. “In a way, I felt like I took my reporting skills and I became my own little newsroom. There has been such a great opportunity to tell our story, to encourage students who want an education to come here.”

Reflecting back on her TV news days, she’s seen a dramatic change in the industry, the times when newsrooms were filled with reporters and camera crews, and news anchors did just that–not serving as reporters as well.

“Stations and newspapers had news bureaus in D.C., Utah County, even St. George,” she recalled. “The size of our staffs was so much larger than today, and with that diminishing of reporters came questions–like who’s watching city councils now, who’s paying attention to what the mayors and cities are doing? How is money being spent, and how is power being used or abused? Those are the really critical stories that aren’t easy to cover.”

With the internet, news sources began giving away their news for free, because once one source started doing it, all the others followed.

“GE owned a TV network (NBC), and they gave away its information for free online, but they didn’t give away their washing machines for free. Information is all we have in the news business. It shouldn’t be treated as an invaluable commodity.”

She views news as “the backbone of democracy. I feel strongly that it is the Fourth Estate. It is the watchdog for all of the other institutions of government–to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. I am so afraid for this country without a solid working media that is well regarded.”

Hess and her husband hope to do some traveling now that she’s retired, and plan a trip to Peru later this year. She also wants to spend time with her four (and soon to be five) grandsons.

“We only have boys in this family,” she said with a laugh. “I have such great memories of my grandparents, and I want my grandchildren to have the same experience with us.λ