The opportunity for Melissa Ross started about six months ago, when a friend at NPR forwarded her name to WAMU in Washington, D.C., to be added to the list of potential fill-ins at The Diane Rehm Show.
The show’s staff listened to some First Coast Connect shows, but Ross said she didn’t hear back quickly.
“Then one day, I got an email out of the blue asking if I’d like to fill in for Diane,” Ross said. That was Sept. 23 from the WAMU general manager.
She will head to D.C. in two weeks to host the show Dec. 9-11.
Ross is the host and producer of First Coast Connect, which airs 9-10 a.m. Monday-Friday on WJCT 89.9 FM, the public broadcast station in Jacksonville.
Rehm’s show airs daily on 89.9 FM from 10 a.m. to noon. She does her show out of WAMU, a D.C. station affiliated with American University. The show is distributed by NPR to about 200 stations.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said Ross, who began hosting the First Coast Connect interview and call-in show upon joining WJCT in 2009 with 20 years of experience in broadcasting.
Ross met Rehm, now 79, at an event in 2011 at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall.
“She was encouraging,” said Ross, and provided “some great advice on how to grow my own program.”
The dianerehmshow.org site says Rehm took over as host of WAMU’s midday Kaleidoscope program in 1979. The name was changed to The Diane Rehm Show in 1984.
The program grew from a small local morning call-in show on Washington’s WAMU 85.5 to a national program that draws more than 2.4 million listeners across the country each week.
Ross won’t need to choose the topics or book the interviews. According to its website, The Diane Rehm Show has eight producers to take care of the show.
Rehm said at the 2011 gathering the producers develop the show a day in advance and she gets the script at 8:15 a.m. when she arrives at work.
Ross said she will receive more details about the shows and guests the Monday and Tuesday of the week she hosts.
Ross grew up in Ohio and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Her career includes experience as a TV and radio news anchor and reporter as well as in corporate communications with the Dalton Agency from 2006-09. Before that, she was with First Coast News in Jacksonville for three years and has worked at six TV stations around the country.
She has won four Emmys, including one in 2011 for her 2010 film “The 904, Shadow on the Sunshine State,” which explored Jacksonville’s murder rate.
Synovus moving local HQ to Hampton Village
Synovus Bank of Jacksonville intends to move its headquarters from Centurion Centre to Hampton Village in the first quarter.
Synovus will relocate about 40 team members to the Fremont at Gate Parkway, an Ash Properties development at 7768 Ozark Drive in Hampton Village. The bank now is headquartered at 10407 Centurion Parkway N.
Scott Contracting LLC is the contractor for the 2,400-square-foot build-out of suite 104 in the Fremont building at a project cost of $250,000.
Damon Olinto, division president and CEO of Synovus Bank of Jacksonville, said the bank initially will move its commercial lending team and follow up with a retail branch a few weeks later.
The Fremont building is east of the Interstate 295 and Gate Parkway interchange, opposite the new IKEA site.
In Northeast Florida, Synovus Bank has six locations, including two in Nassau County.
Synovus Financial Corp. is based in Columbus, Ga., and provides commercial and retail banking, investment and mortgage services in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee. With about $28 billion in assets, it operates through 28 locally branded divisions, 258 branches and 336 ATMs.
FreshJax opening in Hampton Village
FreshJax settled on a brick-and-mortar location for its healthy food and yoga studio in Hampton Village at 11526 Lake Mead Ave., No. 103-104.
That building is the Wellington at Gate Parkway.
The 1,862-square-foot space will be built-out by Ash Construction LLC at a cost of almost $36,000.
It includes a yoga studio, kitchen, office and retail space.
FreshJax is owned by Jason and Hillary McDonald, who started their quest in 2010 to develop healthy foods. Hillary McDonald became a certified yoga teacher and Jason McDonald is a certified personal trainer.
The McDonalds said the new location should open by late January or February.
They make and sell their foods, including organic hot sauces, at farmers’ markets in Northeast Florida as well as in some grocery stores and restaurants. They have been renting a commercial kitchen.
Jeremiah’s starts shop in Mandarin
Jeremiah’s Italian Ice opened its Mandarin shop over the weekend at 9891 San Jose Blvd. in San Jose Village.
The company, which also has a store in Orange Park, features more than 40 flavors of Italian ice as well as soft ice cream. Its showcase item is gelati, made from layers of Italian ice and soft ice cream.
The Mandarin shop employs 12-15 people and is open daily at 11 a.m., closing at 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Jeremiah’s Italian Ice has 13 stores in Central Florida, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville.
Will there be beads?
Featuring a Mardi Gras theme, the JAX Chamber scheduled its 131st annual meeting for 5-8 p.m. Jan. 28 at its Downtown headquarters.
The event will be at the Florida Blue Plaza at its 3 Independent Drive location and feature live music, a biergarten and entertainment for the more than 1,000 business leaders expected to attend.
For information and pricing, visit myjaxchamber.com.
@MathisKb
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