Stacy Harris

Stacy Harris, the Minnesota-born actress, "talking head," researcher and scriptwriter, never dreamed she'd be confused with the late Canadian character actor of the same name; a byproduct of not only being one of two people with identical first and last names in the same profession, but also, in the Internet Age, the conflating of search engine data. However momentary, the confusion was once hers alone. It happened on that March day in 1973 when the then University of Maryland at College Park student decided to take a lunch break in her dorm room. With her roommate elsewhere, Stacy unpacked her bag lunch and turned her transistor radio on to listen to one of her favorite radio broadcasts. Anyone who remembers ABC Radio's Paul Harvey News and Comment knows that the program host seldom began his hybrid mix of news headlines and opinion with the most important story of the day. And so it was that quirky Paul Harvey, whose commanding voice the College Park RATV (radio and TV) major has always likened to what, to her always sounded like what she imagined to be "the voice of G-d," nearly lost her appetite when jolted by that booming voice's opening words: "Stacy Harris is dead!" Seconds later it became obvious that the reference was to that OTHER Stacy Harris. The Stacy Harris with a broadcast degree is an alumna of St. Louis Park High School where she and her classmate, Thomas Friedman (now a New York Times columnist) were among those who contributed to the school newspaper. Joel and Ethan Coen are among Park High's other famous alumni. The Coen Brothers give a nod to their drama teacher, Pete Peterson in the filmmakers' 1987 film, Raising Arizona, Likewise, Stacy Harris credits Peterson for giving Stacy her first acting role, directing her in the role of Rebecca Nurse in St. Louis Park High School's production of The Crucible. One of Park High's American History Singers, Stacy later became a songwriter, having taken a Middle Tennessee State University songwriting course taught by one of her mentors, Tom T. Hall, following Stacy's graduation from the University of Maryland. (Stacy's higher education began while still in high school, earning college credit taking summer courses at the College of Emporia in Emporia, Kansas. Stacy's completion of her studies at the College of Emporia, along with summer enrollment at Vanderbilt University, enabled Stacy Harris to obtain her Bachelor of Arts degree in three years.) Stacy Harris often jokes about her decision to move from the Washington, D.C. area (where she studied political communications and rhetorical theory and so impressed her instructor, Kathleen Hall Jamieson that the professor encouraged Stacy to apply for a White House internship, offering to serve as a reference). As Stacy explains her move to Nashville, where she has lived for the last half-century covering country-music as an author, print and broadcast journalist when not racking up acting, TV and movie production credits: "There's enough politics in the music business."