Jim Lehrer

I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was living in Beaumont. I was a sophomore at French High School, and I wrote a paper about Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. My English teacher gave me an A and wrote in the left-hand corner: "Jimmy, you are a very good writer." It was that, plus the fact that I wanted to be a baseball player but wasn't very good. So at sixteen I decided I was going to be a sportswriter. Once I made that decision, I worked for the high school paper. Then we moved to San Antonio, where I attended Thomas Jefferson High School and became one of the three sports editors at the Jefferson Declaration. By my senior year, I was hooked beyond belief.