Mary Jo West is name you might know — especially if you’ve been in the Phoenix area for a while.

She has been called the “First Lady of TV News” here. In 1976, she became the first prime time anchorwoman in the market. She sat beside Phoenix TV news legend Bill Close and faced some difficult treatment as she blazed women-in-media trails.

But, even as she worked to gain respect as an anchorwoman, West couldn’t help but give in to another love of her life: the theater.

As Arizona Republic arts reporter Kerry Lengel recently wrote, the TV news star took a leap of faith in 1982 when she took the lead role in the Phoenix Theatre Company’s production of "The Sound of Music."

That show helped bring the then-failing theater back from the brink.

West recently came to KJZZ's studio to talk about it.