Debra Leigh

Debra Leigh was born and raised in Washington DC, USA. She graduated from James Madison University. In 1980, while a senior at JMU and an aspiring writer and producer of commercials, she visited WSIG - a small radio station then located 25 miles north of JMU. She asked if they'd consider hiring her as a copywriter. Instead, program director Dave Parks handed her some copy and asked her to sit down at the microphone in the production room to read it while he recorded her. The next day he offered her a job as the station's first ever News Director. Flabbergasted but never at a loss for words, Debra stammered "news is definitely" what she wanted to do most of all, while silently thanking the universe she had actually taken some journalism classes. That week she began a 24-year broadcasting career as a television and radio host, which soon brought her back to her home town. During her broadcast years in the Washington DC market, Debra created, launched and hosted one of the radio industry's first talk shows dedicated exclusively to women's topics, "Girl Talk", for which she and co-host Erica Hilary were nominated in 2004 by Radio & Records as "Talk Radio's Next Rising Stars".