Cothelle Dodson's 40-year career at the Fort Worth Stock Show began in a hot tub.
In 1972, she was asked to model in a hot tub at a stock show display. Sometimes, she spent eight to 10 hours a day in the water. "My skin got a little pruny, but I recovered," Dodson, 70, quipped.
The hot tub gig lasted for four or five years, she said. But today, Dodson is better known as the announcement lady at the Amon G. Carter Jr. Exhibits Hall. Proudly displaying her soft and somewhat shaky voice, she routinely makes announcements about lost children and lost husbands. She's also quick to add to the stock show's festive mood. If the weather is bad -- as it often is in late January or early February -- she will take the mic and tell the crowd the day's forecast calls for "sunshine and a balmy 70 degrees."
"Nobody loves her work more than this lady," co-worker and friend Fay Monkres said. At the beginning of this year's show, Monkres and other co-workers presented Dodson with a shiny belt buckle commemorating her 40th year of employment at the stock show.
Dodson, a 1959 graduate of Arlington Heights High School on Fort Worth's west side, considers her announcement window on the north end of the exhibit hall (look for the Cavender's boots display) "the best people-watching window this side of the airport."
"We had a streaker dart by one time," she said. "We've just about seen it all."
@gdickson
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