This story was reported by: Melissa Hawkes (2 Videos)

Reporting has been a passion of mine ever since the day I first stepped into a news station at the age of 17. It was at that moment I knew I wanted to be a part of the action. I am a proud Texan, born and raised in Katy, Texas. After graduating from high school, I decided to be adventurous and attended Florida State University. I spent one year at FSU and loved every second of it. It didn’t take me long to realize that no other state was like Texas and I had to come back! I transferred to Texas Christian University in August 2006 and majored in Broadcast Journalism and minored in Political Science. I took advantage of every opportunity in college to learn as much as possible about reporting. I traveled to Australia to study journalism in Sydney and Melbourne. I also completed an internship with a Fox News Radio station at the Democratic National Convention in August 2008. While interning, I met one of my all-time favorite reporters--Anderson Cooper and even walked right past Oprah Winfrey! The highlight was seeing Barack Obama give his Democratic nominee acceptance speech to run for the Presidency. The DNC was definitely one the best experiences of my life and motivated me to become a better reporter. After returning from the convention, I interned at NBC affiliate, KXAS, here in DFW and learned everything from how a newsroom operates to the daily grind of reporting. I graduated from TCU in May 2009 and now I have the opportunity to turn my passion of reporting into a reality by joining the DFWreporting.com team. I have come to love DFW and I am thrilled to be reporting on positive news in the DFW area. Feel free to send story ideas my way!