Leslie Adkins grew up with the news. Every evening, her family sat around the table and watched the nightly lineup.

“I found it so fascinating to learn so much about so many different people in so many different places,” she said. The children’s news show “Nick News With Linda Ellerbee” was one of her biggest inspirations. “I taped over many milestones of my life trying to record it.”

Her excitement for the news has continued throughout her life. She was named an Al Neuharth USA Today Free Spirit Scholar in high school, and received a scholarship and a trip to Washington, where she met Tim Russert, who hosted “Meet the Press” on NBC before his death.

Since then she’s interned with NBC’s “Nightly News With Brian Williams” and ABC’s “20/20” and worked in Washington for Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., and the Healthcare Leadership Council.

At Dartmouth College she studied government and French studies, and spent a semester in Paris. She’s now a graduate of the journalism master’s program at Columbia University, where she concentrated on broadcasting.

“I’m really interested in broadening people’s horizons and exposing them to a lot of different parts of the world and a lot of different parts of the country,” she said.

While her family encourages her interest in journalism, failure was a lesson she had to learn on her own, she said. In high school, she broke down in class after losing a student government election.

“That was my first wake-up call that not everyone’s going to like you,” she said. “But that’s not an impediment to your success. If you put enough hard work into your goals, you’re going to succeed.”

She’s developed a journalistic focus on health news because of her own experience with diabetes, and her volunteer work with children has led to an interest in creating news for young people.

“I’m interested in doing a lot more coverage that brings in a youth perspective,” Adkins said. “A lot of times kids end up as the subject of stories and not really the audience to them.”

– Aleesa Mann

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