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stated she felt betrayed by the family member who had sold the story of her son to the National Enquirer in 1990.[44]
Winfrey attended Lincoln High School in Milwaukee, but after early success in the Upward Bound program, was transferred to the affluent suburban Nicolet High School. Upon transferring, she said she was continually reminded of her poverty as she rode the bus to school with fellow African-Americans, some of whom were servants of her classmates’ families. She began to rebel and steal money from her mother in an effort to keep up with her free-spending peers.[45][46] As a result, her mother once again sent her to live with Vernon in Nashville, although this time she did not take her back. Vernon was strict but encouraging, and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation.[47][48] In 1986, Winfrey said, “‘When my father took me, it changed the course of my life. He saved me. He simply knew what he wanted and expected. He would take nothing less'”.[26]
Winfrey’s first job as a teenager was working at a local grocery store.[49][50] At the age of 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.[51][52][53] She also attracted the attention of the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part-time.[39] She worked there during her senior year of high school and in her first two years of college.[54] She had won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, where she studied communication. However, she did not deliver her final paper and receive her degree until 1987, by which time she was a successful television personality.[55]
Winfrey’s career in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage. As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family’s property. Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother’s influence, saying it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and “gave me a positive sense of myself”.[56]
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