CAPE GIRARDEAU NATIVE RECEIVES THREE NEW EMMYS

Jeannie Hirsch Blaylock, a television anchorwoman in Florida and formerly of Cape Girardeau, won three Emmys this year, bringing her career total to six.

She is the daughter of Jim and Beverly Hirsch of Cape Girardeau.

The Emmys are awarded by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

"For any television journalist to win one is very exciting," Blaylock said in a telephone interview. "I'm quite ecstatic and I'm proud I won for stories that have saved people's lives."

Blaylock won two Emmys for her project on skin cancer called "Skin Deep."

"The good impact was motivating literally thousands of people to come in for a free skin check," Blaylock said. "We told people what skin cancer looks like and that it is nothing to mess with."

She took her home video camera to the beach one Sunday to interview teenagers "cooking their skin."

She interviewed a man with melanoma who died during the course of the project.

Blaylock won the third award for her on-going breast cancer awareness project, Buddy Check 12. She and her mother call each other once a month as a reminder to do a breast self-exam. Buddy Check 12 has become a pilot for other communities in the country, she said.

Blaylock did not attend the award ceremony because she was in Vietnam working on a new series of reports.

She spent 10 days in the country.

"No television journalist from this area had been there in 20 years," Blaylock explained. "It is Communist now and we have no diplomatic relations but many, many veterans are interested.

"I saw children begging on the streets for a chunk of bread. Children playing with concrete blocks with nails because they had no toys."

"I was never more glad to be an American."